Daysider (Nightsiders) Read online

  Human/vampire relations are in turmoil in a stunning new series by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Susan Krinard

  Tensions between human and vampire factions are escalating. Peace hangs in the balance. And like two ill-fated stars, Alexia Fox and Damon are destined to collide. She’s a seductive human operative on a mission to infiltrate an illegal vampire colony. He’s a vampire and represents everything she loathes—and all that she desires. Their attraction is scorching, immediate…and could explode like the fragile truce they’ve both been fighting independently to preserve. Now the world’s last hope hinges on their ability to work together. As enemies they are doomed, but as allies they just might save the world.

  The man who walked out from behind the bushes was tall.

  That was the first thing Alexia noticed as she drew a bead on his chest directly over his heart. Then she looked up into his face. He was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. Not beautiful like a woman, but in the perfect harmony of his features: the strong chin, straight nose, high cheekbones, expressive lips.

  And his eyes. They were dark…not maroon like those of a Nightsider, but the deepest sapphire imaginable. His short hair was not white, like most vampires, but a hue somewhere between brown and gold, and his skin was deeply tanned.

  Alexia swallowed. She had met her first Daysider at last, and he was so much…more than she had expected.

  Also by Susan Krinard

  HARLEQUIN NOCTURNE

  Holiday with a Vampire 4 #149

  “Halfway to Dawn”*

  Daysider #165*

  *Nightsiders

  HARLEQUIN HQN

  Code of the Wolf

  Luck of the Wolf

  Bride of the Wolf

  Lord of Sin

  Lord of Legends

  Come the Night

  Dark of the Moon

  Chasing Midnight

  Lord of the Beasts

  To Tame a Wolf

  HARLEQUIN LUNA

  Hammer of the Earth

  Shield of the Sky

  SUSAN KRINARD

  has been writing paranormal romance for nearly twenty years. Her books include a number of novels for Harlequin HQN. With Daysider she begins a series of vampire paranormal romances, the Nightsiders series, for Harlequin Nocturne.

  Sue lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband, Serge, her dogs, Freya, Nahla and Cagney, and her cats, Agatha and Rocky. She loves her garden, nature, painting and chocolate…not necessarily in that order.

  DAYSIDER

  Susan Krinard

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to a world of vampires, dhampires and humans, a world following a devastating war between the Opiri—an ancient vampire race risen from centuries-long sleep during the cataclysmic event known as the Awakening—and humans fighting for survival.

  Humans and Opiri have struck an uneasy peace and divided the earth into vampire Citadels and human Enclaves. Between and around them lies the Zone, a no-man’s-land where only very special agents operate—the half human, half Opir race called dhampires and the Daysiders, mutant vampires who can walk in daylight.

  As the threat of a new war looms, dhampir Alexia Fox and Daysider operative Damon have been chosen to work together in maintaining the peace. Only their courage and developing love for each other give them any hope of sparing the world another terrible war…one that may result in the destruction of civilization.

  I hope you’ll enjoy this story and the next two books in my Nightsiders series for Harlequin Nocturne.

  Best,

  Susan Krinard

  With thanks to both “L’s” for their

  patience and support.

  The first known offspring of a voluntary union between a human female and a male Opir, aka “Nightsider,” was born in the San Francisco Enclave during the seventh year of the Opir-Human War, conceived during the brief period of the first Truce. The child, Jenna Donnelly, daughter of Special Forces Captain Fiona Donnelly and Opir refugee Kane, remained the only documented example of such a union until the last year of the War, when other hybrid children—christened “dhampires”—and their mothers, who were accused of willingly “consorting with the enemy,” were brought into the capital city of San Francisco.

  In the final year of the War and immediately afterward, human soldiers sweeping the newly created Zone—otherwise known as “No-man’s land”—between Enclave and Opir territories discovered lost, abandoned dhampir children, as well as those in hiding with their mothers. Unlike the women of the first “wave,” these mothers had been impregnated by male Opir soldiers without their consent, and they were often unaware that they had conceived until weeks after the encounter.

  Such women and their children were given full refugee status in the Enclave, though their acceptance among Enclave citizens was slow in coming. This acceptance was impossible in Opir society, where hybrid children were considered undesirable half-castes and even abominations. It was a common belief in the Enclave that any children born to human serfs in Opir territory, particularly the city of Erebus, were destroyed before birth—a credence that was largely refuted in subsequent years, though the practice was not unknown.

  In spite of their awkward status within the Enclave, dhampires soon proved to be invaluable assets. With the ability to see clearly in the dark, along with keener senses, strength and speed than homo sapiens, these children were soon recruited by Aegis, the Enclave Intelligence agency responsible for Opir-Human relations.

  On its face, Aegis studied Opir society and arranged ambassadorial visits between Erebus and the Enclave, but in practice it also ran covert infiltration, intelligence operations, espionage and counterespionage within the Zone, occasionally inserting specially trained moles, posing as serfs, into Erebus itself.

  Though not required to undergo Aegis training, most dhampir youths eventually sought affirmation by serving the Enclave as covert operatives. The only complication in utilizing such resources lay in some dhampires’ need for blood, another trait they held in common with their Opir Sires.

  With few exceptions, dhampires rejected the taking of blood from humans. While fully sixty percent of dhampires could survive on human food alone, the remaining forty percent, in addition to being immune to the bite of a full Opir, required a special drug to allow them to digest human fare.

  In time, scientists developed a means of delivering the drug into the body through a subdermal patch. This allowed the “immune” dhampires to work in the field for extended periods without requiring blood.

  But dhampir operatives faced yet another challenge: Opir scouts who, while dependent on blood for survival, were capable of sustained exposure to sunlight. These “Daysiders,” outcasts within their own rigid society, nevertheless served as counterparts to Aegis agents and hindered the gathering of intelligence and other clandestine operations within the Zone.

  —from the Introduction to A Brief History of the Nightsider War, San Francisco Enclave

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  San Francisco, California

  Mommy was crying. Alexia knew it had something
to with do the lady on the TV, talking in soft words that didn’t match the angry expression on her face.

  Behind the lady was a picture of a city, a black, upside-down bowl that gleamed like a beetle’s shell in bright sunlight. “Erebus,” the lady on the TV said. Alexia didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded like a very bad word. And somehow, it was making Mommy sad.

  Alexia got up from her seat on the thin carpet and went to Mommy, searching her face anxiously. There were dark blotches under Mommy’s eyes, and her nose was red.

  “What is it, Mommy?” Alexia asked, reaching up to be taken into her mother’s arms.

  Mommy picked her up and sat her on the couch beside her. “Nothing’s wrong, Lexie,” she said, trying to smile.

  Alexia always knew when Mommy was fooling. It wasn’t just that she smelled different, or the way her voice got very tight, even though she was smiling. There was something wrong, and it made Alexia upset that Mommy was unhappy. Upset and angry.

  “What are they talking about?” Alexia asked, pointing at the TV.

  Mommy pulled Alexia close and stroked her hair. “It’s a city,” she said.

  “Like San Francisco?”

  “Not the same,” Mommy replied. She breathed in and out in a funny way that made Alexia’s heart hurt. “You remember when we talked about the Nightsiders?”

  Alexia made a face. “They’re nasty. We had a big fight with them.”

  “That’s right.” Mommy bent her head so her nose pressed against Alexia’s hair. “That is the city they built in what we used to call the Sonoma Valley. They made it all for themselves, where they don’t have to be in the sun.”

  “Sun kills them,” Alexia said solemnly.

  “That’s right.”

  “And they used to kill people all the time, didn’t they? During the big fight?”

  Mommy covered Alexia’s eyes as if she didn’t want her to see the TV anymore. “You shouldn’t know about that,” she said, a funny warble in her voice. “No child should know.”

  “Don’t worry, Mommy.” Alexia pulled her mother’s hand away from her eyes. “The kids at school talk about the bloodsuckers all the time. I’m not scared.”

  “Oh, God,” Mommy whispered. “Do they... Are the other kids...nice to you, at school?”

  “Oh, they’re okay. Some of the girls are mean sometimes. They give me funny looks. The boys just stare at me a lot.”

  Mommy cupped both her hands around Alexia’s face. “What do they say?”

  Alexia shrugged the way she had seen grown-ups do when they were pretending something didn’t matter. “Silly things, about my eyes.” She touched her own eyelids. “They say I’m like a cat because I can see in the dark.”

  “That’s right,” Mommy said in a completely different voice than before. “Like a cat. And cats are beautiful, aren’t they? So graceful and brave.” She smiled, moving Alexia to sit in her lap. “But you know what? I think you look even more like a fox. Remember the pictures I showed you?”

  Alexia nodded. “It was red, like my hair.”

  “And quick and clever. Like you.”

  They were very nice words, but Alexia couldn’t help looking at the TV again, and at the ugly city with the scary name.

  “The bloodsuckers aren’t ever going to come here, are they?” she asked, just a little bit scared after all.

  “Lexie, that word—”

  “Isn’t that what they are, Mommy?”

  Mommy made a sound a little like a laugh, but it wasn’t a happy one. “Yes,” she said. “But you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I’m not worried.” Alexia bit her lip. “We aren’t ever going to get in a big fight with them again, are we?”

  “No.” She took a big, long breath. “I wish—”

  Alexia wriggled free and looked up into Mommy’s eyes. “What do you wish, Mommy?”

  “I wish things could be the way they were before...before the big fight.”

  “When my daddy was alive?”

  Mommy’s face seemed to crumple all at once. She sobbed, and Alexia knew it was because of what she had said. It was all her fault.

  “It’s okay, Mommy,” she said, stroking her mother’s trembling hand and soft, wet cheeks. “I won’t ever talk about Daddy again.”

  “Oh, my baby,” Mommy said, gathering Alexia up again so tightly that she could barely breathe. “I will never, ever let anyone hurt you. Not anyone. I’m going to keep you with me forever and ever.”

  Alexia pressed her face to the pulse in Mommy’s neck. It was so warm and sweet. It made her feel safe.

  But she didn’t want to just be safe. She wanted to find a way to make Mommy happy.

  And keep those nasty bloodsuckers in their ugly black city from making anyone afraid, ever again.

  Chapter 1

  San Francisco Enclave, West Coast Region

  “It may be fatal,” the Director said.

  Alexia laughed. “Since when hasn’t that been true of every mission?”

  Aegis Director of Field Operations Wilson McAllister regarded her without a trace of amusement. “This isn’t funny, Alex,” he said. “We’re talking about violating our side of the Treaty and striking deep into the Zone. Even the Mayor doesn’t know about it.”

  “At least not officially,” Alexia said.

  “Not officially enough to send someone to pull your ass out of the fire if you get caught.” The steel rims of McAllister’s glasses flashed as they caught the cold and sterile light from the overhead fixtures. “Your mission will be to learn everything you can about the Nightsiders’ illegal colony without doing anything to attract the Citadel’s attention. If you fail or are captured—”

  “—Aegis will disavow any knowledge of our actions. I know the drill.” Alexia wandered to the window overlooking the glimmering waters of San Francisco Bay. From Aegis headquarters in the old Financial District, she could see a heavily guarded convoy of trucks carrying agricultural products from the Central Valley into the city. The Treaty meant that the Nightsiders were supposed to leave such convoys alone.

  Usually they did. But there were always the terrorists, the ones who wanted to ignite a new War. On both sides. And that was what her team would be sent in to try to prevent.

  Alexia drifted back into memory, of the year the Nightsiders had first appeared. Not that they’d been her memories, not exactly. But she’d seen the archived news vids, the looks of bewilderment and fear on the newscasters’ faces when the first reports came in: horror stories of vampires arising seemingly out of nowhere, some emerging from decades or centuries or even millennia of sleep in sanctuaries built far beneath the earth. No one knew—or at least the leeches weren’t telling—what had roused them, or why they had chosen that time to rise and claim the earth.

  Ten years later—ten years of chaos and plague and terrible war, the time when Alexia’s mother gave birth to a half-vampire child—had led to the Treaty, and now most parts of the world were carefully divided into territories: vampire Citadels and human Enclaves, separated by the unclaimed regions known as the Zones.

  Just outside the Enclave that embraced San Francisco and the area formerly known as the East Bay, the Zone comprised an immense semicircular region that had once held thriving suburbs, now abandoned and slowly crumbling back to the earth as new forests and fields absorbed stone and concrete, and animals—once driven away by human incursions—reclaimed their original habitats. Beyond the Zone, to the south and east in the regions of the Central Valley, lay the farmlands that produced sustenance for the Enclaves, each surrounded by its own Zone and patrolled by special military forces whose job it was to keep Nightsiders out and human workers safe from them. In theory, as per the Treaty, the workers were protected, and so were the routes to the Enclaves.

  To the north, in the area once distinguished by its scenic fields of grapevines and boutique wineries, its rolling hills and towering redwoods, stood Erebus. The Citadel of Night.

  Alexia remembere
d the images on the TV when the construction began. Very little had been known then, because the Zone had just been established, and rumor was more plentiful than fact. Human laborers...prisoners of war...had built the city by day, vampires by night. In a year the Citadel—all black, gleaming, windowless towers and paradoxically Gothic ornamentation—was large enough to hold a population of ten thousand, and that was only on the surface. It was speculated that the underground portion of the city could house five thousand more. Today, the Citadel was twice as big, with its own farms and fields to support its human inhabitants.

  Slaves, Alexia thought with that burning anger that never diminished. Blood-serfs. The prisoners, the castoffs from the human Enclaves. The damned.

  Like Garret.

  “Ms. Fox?”

  She turned back to McAllister, who was leaning over his desk with an ominous frown on his lean brown face. His sudden formality wasn’t a good sign.

  “You aren’t listening to me,” he said. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  Alexia returned to stand before the desk, taking a formal stance that betrayed none of her emotions. “Yes, sir. More than up to it.”

  “It’s only been a year since your brother was—”

  “I haven’t forgotten, sir.”

  He cleared his throat. “The Examiners say you may still harbor resentment against the Court for sentencing him to Deportation.”

  Deportation. Such a nice way of putting it. “I know the Court weighed the evidence thoroughly, sir. It was a fair trial.”

  The Director sighed and sank back into his chair. “Was it?”

  Alexia knew it was another test, and one she had to pass. “The evidence was conclusive, sir.”

  “Then you no longer believe it was self-defense?”

  The same questions the shrinks had asked her, over and over again, ever since Garret had been sent to Erebus.