“You can put me down,” Quinn said as Chris slipped by her and into the game room.
“You still have glass embedded in your feet,” Julian replied.
“I’ll be fine. You should probably help Chris.”
“No.”
“Julian—”
“No, Quinn.” His hands settled firmly into the small of her back as he held her closer. “I’m not letting you endure unnecessary pain. You’ve done that too much in your life.”
She bit back her reply when he gave her an unrelenting stare. He would not let her go. Chris reemerged from the game room with the Hunter’s body draped over his shoulder.
“We have to get out of here,” Melissa said. “If there are Commission and Hunters in this place, we could well be outnumbered.”
“Let’s go,” Julian replied.
CHAPTER 12
Julian winced as he pulled another piece of glass from Quinn’s foot and threw it into the trashcan beside him. The others stood around him, most of them trying to keep as much distance from him as they could within the RV. His fury mounted with every shard he pulled from her flesh. He’d already cleaned all the glass from her hands and her left foot while she’d consumed three of the pints of blood they kept stashed onboard.
“My feet will push the glass out and heal on their own,” Quinn said, not for the first time.
“This will help them heal faster,” he replied without looking up.
If he saw the pain in her eyes, he would lose the thin thread of control he maintained right now. He had almost lost her when Earl had taken her, and today she’d been attacked by a Hunter because he had been foolish enough to run off and she’d followed him. She easily could have overtaken the Hunter and killed him, but no, his Quinn had tried to reason with the bastard.
Not her fault. It’s yours! He reminded himself.
He’d caused this. She was his to protect and love, and he’d put her at risk by not thinking about her and what she would do when he charged after that man. If it had been a trap, he could have left her vulnerable to attack. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to make this up to her.
The tweezers trembled in his grasp. He took a minute to steady himself before pulling another splinter of glass from her sliced and bleeding feet. Finally, he removed the last broken piece and wiped her foot off with a towel. His hand lingered on her slender calf before he released his grip on her and rose.
Quinn’s hands rested on his stomach when he pulled aside the curtain covering the window of the RV to reveal the night beyond. Two police cars were still parked in front of the hotel. Their sirens were off, but their lazily spinning lights flashed red and blue across the asphalt. Two police officers walked out the front door and toward the cars. Julian’s gaze scanned the parking lot as the last police car pulled away from the front door.
Devon and Cassie had managed to confiscate all the camera footage of what had occurred and changed the memories of any who may have witnessed something. They’d disposed of the body and covered their tracks the best they could, but there had been no hiding the damage done to the arcade room. Someone had discovered it soon after they’d left the hotel and the police were called in.
“You okay?” Melissa inquired as she slid into the seat beside Quinn.
Quinn’s fingers curled into his shirt, drawing his attention to her before she released him. “I’m fine,” she replied.
Chris walked over to hand Quinn a package of peanut butter cups and a can of Mountain Dew. “Thought you might like these,” he said to her.
She smiled as she took them from Chris. “It’s like you read my mind.” Quinn popped the top on her soda and took a lengthy swallow before placing the can in her lap. “Now what?”
“Now, we’ll wait for a while. Then, Devon and I will go back in to see if we can discover more information about the two men we encountered tonight,” Julian replied.
“I’m coming with you. They have no idea who I am or what I’m capable of. They only know me as a vampire. They know all of you, and they know what most of you can do. That Hunter told me there’s been a standing kill order on every one of you for two years. They might hesitate to kill me. They won’t hesitate to kill you.”
“Bastards,” Lou said.
“It’s not surprising,” Devon replied from where he sat in the passenger seat with Cassie on his lap.
“You have no idea what they’ll do if they get their hands on you,” Julian said to Quinn.
She lifted her hands and wiggled her fingers. The scars on her palms were stark against her pale skin, but her wounds from tonight had already healed. “I’ll drain the life from them so fast they won’t know what hit them.”
“You didn’t do that with the Hunter,” Julian reminded her.
“That’s because he was one of us. I wanted to make him see reason.”
“There is no reasoning with The Commission or anyone they’ve had under their thumb for too long,” Luther said, drawing Julian’s gaze to where he sat in the driver’s seat. The lines on the Guardian’s face were deeper than normal. The haggard air about him made him appear older than he truly was. “They corrupt all those close to them. Don’t try to make them see reason next time. Just kill them. Otherwise, you’ll be the one who ends up dead.”
“That’s what I told her,” Julian said.
He’d expected Quinn to bristle over his words, but her eyes were full of sadness when they came back to his. “To just give up on someone seems so… hopeless.”
“It’s not giving up on them. It’s recognizing they can’t be saved.”
Methodically, she worked to unwrap a peanut butter cup. “There were probably many who believed you couldn’t be saved.”
He stared down at her, unsure of how to respond. She was such a contradiction—willing to kill when necessary and with a brutality that matched his own, but her heart was one of the biggest he’d ever come across. In many ways, she understood him and accepted him like no other could; she made him stronger, yet she could also weaken him completely when she uttered words like those.
He didn’t want her to be colder toward others. He loved her the way she was. She kept him grounded when the thrill of killing tried to call him back into its alluring depths. However, he couldn’t stand the thought that she might once again try to reason with their enemies because she believed they could be saved, or at least change, as he had.
“I’m sure many didn’t think I was worth trying to save,” he finally replied. “And at the time, they would have been right about me, but I made no secret of who and what I was back then. Maybe I could have tried to be better earlier in my life, but the possibility never crossed my mind, and in all honesty, I didn’t want to. I enjoyed torturing and killing, and I admit it.
“But it also wasn’t ingrained into my head that I had to be a ruthless killer. I’d seen Devon change. When the time came for me to reevaluate myself and my choices, it was not something I believed impossible. The Commission has spent centuries hiding behind a pretense of doing good in the world while torturing humans and vampires in a twisted attempt at playing God. Those men and women are monsters. You cannot reason with a monster, Quinn.”
“Dani got away from them,” she replied.
“I wasn’t born amongst them,” Dani said. “I went in as a child, but I wasn’t raised by them. Even still, they had me following them and believing in them enough that I turned Cassie over to them. It wasn’t until I saw what they were doing beneath that school, and their true nature that I realized I’d chosen poorly. I regret it every day, but someone who is raised with them may never come to see that The Commission is the true evil in this world.”
Quinn picked at the edge of her peanut butter cup before she turned toward Dani. “Would you hesitate to kill one of their Hunters?”
Dani glanced nervously at Julian as her fingers touched upon the missing piece of her ear. “No, I wouldn’t. Not anymore. I’ve seen too much of what they do. I may not want to kill them, but Th
e Commission and their followers can’t be allowed to spread through this world again. You have no idea some of the things they did…” She broke off and her haunted gaze fell on the window across from her. “They have to be stopped.”
“I know they do,” Quinn said.
But she might hesitate again if it was a Hunter she encountered, he knew it. “You’re staying here with everyone else when we go in the hotel,” he said to her.
“No, I’m not,” she replied.
“You can barely walk.”
She lifted her feet and wiggled her toes as she bit into her peanut butter cup. “Almost as good as new.”
“Are you going to walk into the hotel in your bathing suit? All of your clothes are inside.”
“I’m sure there are some clothes in here I can wear.”
Julian cursed; he nearly ripped the curtain from the window. Devon adjusted Cassie, settling her into the passenger seat before rising to his feet. Walking over to them, he rested a hand on Julian’s shoulder.
“She’s right,” Devon said. “They don’t know what she is, which means they won’t be expecting the amount of power she can unleash if it becomes necessary.”
“I’m trying to keep her from having to do that!” Julian spat at him.
Devon glanced at Cassie before looking to him and Quinn. “But you can’t. Birth placed her in the middle of this battle, more so than either one of us. She is a part of this, and so is everyone else in this RV. This is their history, their people. The Commission has only ever been our enemies, but they created the Hunter line.”
“To let her go in there—”
“You’re not letting me do anything. This is my choice. I’m not asking your permission for it,” Quinn interjected.
Her irises leapt with fire when he met her gaze. Red filtered out through the whites of her eyes like little bolts of lightning. It truly was amazing and unnerving to see. Melissa and Chris moved further away from her when her power seeped out to sizzle in the air around her.
“You are my mate,” she said. “That does not give you the right to control my life, just as it doesn’t give me the right to do the same to you.”
Julian almost punched the side of the RV, but he knew this was a battle he wouldn’t win.
***
Quinn winced and then smoothed her face out to smile at him while she took another step forward in Melissa’s sneakers. The sneakers were too big on her, as were the jeans and sweater she wore. They made her appear far smaller and more vulnerable than she was. He wanted to pick her up, carry her back to the RV, and lock her inside, but she’d never allow it.
“Are you going to be able to run if we have to retreat quickly?” he inquired.
“Pain won’t stop me when our lives are on the line,” she replied.
Turning away from her, he focused on the front of the quiet hotel. Early night had slipped into midnight and then onto the predawn hours before they’d emerged from the RV. It would be easier for them to discover information about the man from The Commission and the Hunter when there were fewer people around.
Luther, Lou, and Dani stood on the other side of Devon. Over the years, the three of them had had the biggest contact with The Commission before they’d broken free of it. They may be able to recognize a name on the guest registry. Otherwise, it was going to take a lot of searching through the rooms of all those staying here.
Tucking Quinn’s arm through his, he kept her against his side as he walked toward the front doors with Devon at his other side. The others had all agreed to stay in the RV to keep watch, for now, but if this took too long, there would be no keeping Cassie back.
Luther opened one of the glass doors to the hotel and stepped aside to let everyone else enter. Stepping into the lobby, Julian’s gaze was drawn to the darkened restaurant on his right. He stopped to examine the room within.
The scent of human food lingered in the air, but he detected no heartbeats from anyone who may be inside. He stepped away from the restaurant and glanced over at where Devon and Luther stood on the other side of the lobby, staring down the hallway leading toward the pool.
“It’s all clear,” Devon said and moved away from the hall.
Julian’s gaze ran over the lobby with its white walls and the logo of the hotel on the wall behind the desk. In the dim light, their shadows danced over the tile floor. Power had been restored to the building since they’d left, but the lights in the lobby were lowered for the night. Devon’s light footsteps were the only sound as he walked to the left to examine the hallway stretching past the desk and leading toward more rooms. Julian had expected to encounter the nightshift employees, but no one sat in the chair behind the desk.
“No one down there,” Devon whispered when he stepped closer to them once more.
Julian kept a firm hold on Quinn as he strode behind the empty desk to examine the monitors there. The others all filed in behind the desk and spread out around him. All of the monitors were black; the security system was still down from whatever Devon and Cassie had done to it earlier.
“That’s a good sign,” Devon murmured.
Julian turned his attention to the backroom when he caught a whiff of floral perfume seconds before something clattered to the ground. His eyes narrowed and his fangs extended as he prepared to tear the throat out of whoever was back there. A low moan and grunt reached him when he stepped closer to the door. Beneath the flowery scent, he caught the musky aroma of sex. His fangs retracted as the tension in him eased, and he turned away from the room.
“Guess we know how they pass the time at night,” Luther murmured.
Lou slipped by Devon to pull the chair up to the computer behind the desk. Lou’s nimble fingers flew over the keyboard while he worked to navigate through the hotel’s computer system. Julian glanced away from the screen as a loud cry filtered from the backroom. Dani was beginning to resemble a tomato as she kept her gaze resolutely focused on the screen. Lou remained completely oblivious as he typed.
“Stay here,” Julian said to Quinn and reluctantly released her arm.
He moved closer to the door as the clicking of Lou’s fingers suddenly stopped. Julian kept his ears attuned to the room behind him while he watched Lou. The last thing they needed was for the couple to finish and discover them at the desk. The others all leaned forward, their shoulders brushing together, their heads almost touching as they peered at the screen over Lou’s shoulder.
Julian’s hands fisted as bloodlust pulsed at the back of his brain. This could be it; they could be one step closer to destroying the enemy who had managed to slip away from him today. If they found him in that guest registry, there would be no more hiding for this member of The Commission.
Lou clicked something on the screen and then something else. Luther inhaled a sharp breath before he thrust his finger at the screen. “That one, Herb Canton. He was on The Commission when I worked for them. I never met him, but I remember hearing his name.”
“Why wouldn’t he use a different name?” Quinn asked.
“There aren’t many alive anymore who would have recognized him or his name,” Luther replied. “And even if they did stumble across us and plan to try to separate us earlier, I doubt he expected to run into us today when he checked in. I think we were as much of a surprise to him as he was to us.”
“Karma really is a delightful bitch,” Devon said as he gazed at the screen with his arms folded over his chest.
“Or maybe he thought he’d be able to kill us and didn’t consider trying to hide his name,” Lou said.
“I would say there were only the two of them here today. I think they would have come at us with everyone they had if there were more of them here. There’s no way those two believed they could take us all down,” Dani replied. “Not unless they’re complete idiots.”
“She’s right,” Luther said as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “They may have seen us before we saw them and plotted to try to separate us and take out at least a couple of us
, but they didn’t know we were here when they checked in.”
Julian took a minute to stabilize his driving urge to kill before he stalked away from the door to the backroom. He stood over Quinn’s shoulder as he stared at the computer. Herb Canton. The man’s name blazed out at him from amidst all the others clustered onto the screen around it. Herb may not know it yet, but he was a dead man walking.
“Address?” Julian inquired.
“Hold on,” Lou said and clicked a button. “Got it.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, typed something into it, and set it on the table beside him. “Let’s see if we recognize the Hunter’s name on here.”
Julian continued to stare at the screen as more names flew by. When he got to the end, Lou sat back in the desk chair and rubbed at his neck. “I don’t recognize anyone else on here.”
“Neither do I,” Luther said, and the two of them looked to Dani.
“No one,” she said, “not even Herb.”
Dani’s gold-flecked hazel eyes lifted to his, and he knew she was waiting for him to question her loyalty. Instead, he turned to look at the computer again. She’d proven herself trustworthy time and again these past two years. He may still want to choke her sometimes, but he wouldn’t question her on this.
“What room was he staying in?” Julian asked. He doubted Herb would have been stupid enough to stick around after everything that had happened today, but if he’d cleared out as hastily as they had, he might have left something behind.
“Two twenty-two,” Lou replied.
“He was right down the hall from us,” Julian hissed through his teeth.
Quinn rested her hand on his arm, soothing him with a simple touch. He didn’t know if she would ever realize the extent of her pull over him or how she could calm the storm of death consuming him with a simple look. His fingers slid through hers, gripping her hand within his.
“Let’s go see what Herb might have left behind,” he said.
“What about a key for his room?” Dani asked.
“We don’t need one and the security system is down.”
Scorched Ice Page 10
