Her Vampire Bad Boy

by Trim, Brenda

  “Yo…your men?”

  “I’m their alpha, and I sent them to retrieve you, mate.” Letting go of my tangled hair, he lifts me by my armpits, so we are both standing.

  “You’re a shifter,” I mutter as my legs wobble. My hands fly out and latch onto his forearms to keep me from falling on my ass.

  “Yes. I’m a shifter. You have been a very bad girl, Harper,” he informs me as he starts pacing back and forth. “You ran away from me. That won’t do.”

  I shake my head, trying to make sense of what he’s telling me. “I never agreed to be your mate or anything else. Why would you have these men kidnap and hurt me?”

  Steve stops and snarls in my face. “Because you’re mine. You belong to me and no one else. With your unique makeup our children will be the strongest shifters the world has ever seen.”

  “I’m not unique. I’m just a regular human woman,” I insist. Does he know something that can explain what’s different about me?

  “Oh, but Harper you are anything but a regular human. From what I’ve been able to learn you carry Fae DNA. It’s possible you are a witch,” Steve replies with a shrug of his shoulders.

  My torso shudders and I wrap my arms around my torso. I can’t be what he’s saying. My knowing insists he’s right. I have Fae ancestry, but that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to be with him. “I’m sorry. I don’t love you, Steve.” That isn’t going to go over well with him, but I can’t let him believe I have feelings for him.

  Faster than I can track, his fist flies out and connects with the side of my head. I’m not prepared, and I fly backwards landing in a heap on the ground. My vision wavers, but I hear him approaching me. I try to lift my arms to protect my head, but don’t get very far before a boot connects with my stomach.

  The scream echoes off the walls and I hear Tony laughing. “Shut the fuck up, idiot,” Steve yells at him. A second later hot breath wafts against my face. Blinking my eyes, I am able to peer through the slit of one to see Steve next to me.

  He brushes the hair back from my face. Instinctively I jerk away which makes him even madder, so I lay curled in a ball without moving while he runs a finger over the cut at my temple.

  “Don’t worry, love. You’re nearing heat. We will be mated today and shortly you will carry my heir. Soon I will take over Tucson and eliminate all the vampires before I make you a new home.”

  This guy is delusional. Mate? Heir? Not happening in my lifetime. “We’re getting mated here?”

  “Yes. We haven’t been able to take over the territory yet, but we will soon.”

  “You can’t take Tucson from Garrett,” I inform him as I think about the alpha’s ferocity. Steve pales in comparison to him.

  “You doubt me,” he growls before he’s standing again, and his boot meets my ribcage. Something snaps and I can’t breathe anymore, but he doesn’t stop kicking me. “I will teach you who your master is, in a way so that you never forget.”

  “I’m sorry,” I choke out on gasps.

  I don’t think he heard me, but he stops and leans down. I rolled away from him at some point and am now facing the opposite direction. He brushes my hair from my face gently then he goes completely still.

  “A vampire fed from you,” he bellows. I flinch and try to crawl away from him.

  A boot on my back stops me cold. Hands wrap around my ankle while Steve stomps on me. My body jerks as it feels as if a thousand-pound weight lands on my thigh. The sound of my femur snapping echoes throughout the cave.

  My scream startles bats that flutter off the ceiling and out the entrance. The world goes black and the next time I register my surroundings Steve is cursing at me calling me all sorts of names.

  “Fucking slut. How could you betray me like that?”

  “I didn’t,” I say through panting breaths. Agony. That’s all I register. From head to toe, everything hurts, and I cannot take a full breath. Has night fallen? If it has Liam will be on his way.

  Then I realize there’s no way he can find me. Steve is losing his shit and going to kill me if he doesn’t get control soon. I don’t even know if I’m still in Arizona. They could have taken me anywhere.

  “At least I know why you think that vampire loving alpha is stronger than me. I will beat the compulsion out of you, then we can be happy together,” Steve rants as he starts kicking me again. I’m too weak to try and curl into a ball. Every blow feels like it’s shredding my internal organs. At least I won’t have to worry about having his child. I’m pretty sure he pulverized my ovaries.

  Blood seeps from the wound on my head and his blows move me across the dirt floor. Slowly the agony changes from searing to numbing. I nearly sob with relief, but I can’t catch my breath to manage the sound.

  My eyes drift closed, and I know I’m going to pass out again. I doubt I will wake up this time. Liam flashes into my mind. I’d smile if it were possible at the moment. I can’t lift an eyelid, let alone my lips. I’m so glad I met him and had the time with him.

  I’m not going to die a virgin, now.

  Or without knowing love.

  Because it’s true. Over the past two days I fell in love with Liam. My bad boy vampire. It’s ironic that I opened up to a violent predator, and yet I am going to perish at the hands of the man my parents tried to force me to marry. My last thought is that I wish I could show them how very wrong they are about Steve.

  “Please,” I whisper making Steve stop what he’s doing, but it’s too late for me. Darkness descends and I know nothing more.

  Chapter 11

  Liam

  She’s gone. That’s the first thought that crosses my mind as I come awake in the dank room in Lucius’s lair. The smell of musty dirt surrounds me, and I can’t smell anything else, but I know Harper is no longer upstairs.

  It might be the anxiety that has plagued me for the past several hours. Something jarred me out of sleep and left a sickening feeling in my gut. Pain even wracked my head, making it throb. I haven’t had a headache like that for too many centuries to count.

  Climbing to my feet, I brush dirt off my sweatpants and head for the door. The sound of stone scraping over stone echoes on the other side of the door, telling me that Lucius and his mate are awake.

  “Sire,” I say in greeting when I open the metal panel and see them standing next to the crypt. Many vampires sleep in coffins, as a hold-over from centuries ago when it made it safer if humans discovered us and we weren’t breathing.

  I’ve never liked that and prefer the big soft bed I have in my lair. Not that I’m aware of the stone beneath my body, or the cold. Like having a house full of food when I really don’t need it, I prefer having a soft mattress to sleep on.

  And, you’re simply prevaricating so you don’t think about Harper. The woman is deep in my soul, and I’m not sure how I will ever give her up when the time comes. You don’t have to, my subconscious whispers.

  That’s ridiculous unless I decide to live out her life with her and then walk into the sun after she passes. The thought has merit. I cannot turn her, and I have no idea how I will live without her. She’s mine.

  “Liam. It’s odd to have you back under my roof during the day. I never thought I’d trust one of my sired enough to allow that,” Lucius says with a nod of his head.

  “I was locked behind a steel door. No way for me to get out, even if I wasn’t even more incapacitated than you during the day,” I reply with a chuckle.

  “Let’s go see how your woman did today,” Selene suggests.

  I follow them up the stairs. Before we reach the bedroom where the entrance to Lucius’s lair is hidden, it’s obvious Harper’s unique scent isn’t as strong as it should be. Selene’s steps increase and my sire looks back at me over his shoulder.

  “Harper,” Selene shouts as she rushes through the master bedroom. “We’re awake.”

  “I don’t think she’s here,” I interject as Lucius and I enter the hall.

  Selene is standing outside
the open door to the room where Harper stayed. “Maybe she’s in the kitchen,” she suggests, and we keep moving to see if she’s right. I know in my gut that isn’t the case, but I hold out hope.

  The massive home is utterly quiet. I entertained an idea that I’d wake up to the sound of the Sybian humming while Harper rides getting ready for me. That’s a much better fantasy than the nightmare pressing at the edges of my mind.

  We pass by the living room and the Sybian is in the same place and there’s no scent of Harper on the thing. “Fucking bitch,” Selene curses a second later. The queen sounds more worried than pissed which bodes well for Harper. She doesn’t want to get on Selene’s bad side.

  “Where do you think she went?” Lucius asked.

  “I’d say her apartment, but she picked up what she needed from there last night,” I explain. “Plus, she was terrified when I found her being choked by the shifter. My guess is she went to work this morning. I never explicitly told her not to go,” I curse and shake my head. Of course, Harper used that as permission to leave the house. She is worried about keeping her job so she can support herself.

  “Doesn’t she know she’s in danger?” Lucius asks as he heads back down the hall.

  “She thinks the attack was a mistake. She didn’t grow up with knowledge about supernaturals and how they think. To her it’s entirely possible the entire situation was a fluke,” I clarify.

  “We’d better head to the college then,” Selene suggests.

  “Let’s get dressed, pet. Meet us out front in five minutes,” Lucius tells me before he and his mate continue to their bedroom.

  I stop at the room where Harper slept and go inside. Her bag is on the chair and her makeup and toothbrush are still in the bathroom. If she went to work, how long are her days? Shouldn’t she be back by now?

  I grab the clothes I hung in the closet the night before. A smile tips my lips when I recall Harper’s reaction to me putting my clothes in her room. She told me she didn’t want the clothes from a one-night stand in the closet with hers.

  I interrupted her tirade with a passionate kiss then promised her we’d have another night. She tried to deny me and used her quick wit to tell me I was delusional, but her cheeks were flushed and her color high when she said it.

  I’m pacing out front, waiting for Lucius to come out. What is taking so long? I pull my phone out to call him when he and Selene finally walk out the door. “Is there anywhere else she’d go? If so, we can split up and cover more ground.”

  I shake my head and cross to my car. “From what she told me she doesn’t have many friends. The women she came to the bar with are co-workers. She hasn’t lived here long enough to make many connections. She’s a responsible woman. I have no doubt she would have wanted to go to work. Nothing else holds that much importance for her.”

  Lucius rubs his chin and wraps an arm around his mate. The sight makes me think of Harper and how much I miss her. She worked her way into my soul, and I don’t want to leave her anymore. It won’t be perfect, but as long as we’re together that’s all I care about.

  I swear I feel her in that second. When I try to reach out to her, I lose whatever it is that I feel. The sudden loss leaves a gaping hole in my chest. I am losing my fucking mind.

  “Okay, let’s head to Pima College. What courses does she teach?”

  “She teaches BioChemistry. I’ll meet you at her office,” I reply and am in my car and racing down the drive within seconds.

  My heart pounds against my ribcage while my mind plays various possibilities of what’s happened to her. Sharp pain stabs through my head, making my vision blur. “Shit,” I curse as I correct my course.

  I nearly drove off the side of the road. What the fuck is wrong with me? My stomach churns and my back is suddenly killing me. Barbed wire shreds my heart, and I can hardly breathe. Thank fuck I don’t actually need oxygen to function.

  Urgency rides me, and the need to find Harper takes over everything. Racing through the crowded parking lot, I park in a handicapped spot and run across campus. Halfway to her office I catch her scent in the courtyard. It’s faint, and if I wasn’t so obsessed with her, I would have missed it even with my supernatural senses.

  Could it be a remnant from the countless times she walked this path before? I dismiss the idea, realizing her scent wouldn’t linger that long in an open location like this. I know what building her office is in, but I don’t know her office number.

  The glass door flies open and hits the side of the building as I throw it open with more force than necessary. Her scent immediately inundates me and directs me down the hall.

  It’s strongest outside a closed door that bears her name on a plaque outside. The scent of shifters nearly chokes me, making my vision turn red. I know what I’m going to find before I open the door.

  “Fuck,” I roar.

  The pain in my chest increases sharply as I crush the knob in my hand. Papers and office supplies are all over the floor. One of the chairs in her office is toppled over, and there are several books littering the floor.

  “She’s not here,” Lucius growls behind me.

  “The shifters have her,” Selene adds as she looks around Lucius’s back to catch a glimpse of the room.

  “Who the fuck are we dealing with? Where could they have taken her?” I demand. The pain in my body ratchets up by the second, making my worry seem so much worse.

  “I’m calling Garrett to see if he has any information,” Lucius says and steps into the hall with his cell phone in hand. I hear my sire talking to the alpha as I try to find her through the blood that I took from her.

  Vampires can form bonds with those they feed from, and in some circumstances, it can be quite strong. I feel a pull to the east, but I have no idea if it’s anything I should pay attention to.

  “Do you have any suggestions about where to start looking?” I ask Selene.

  Selene’s eyes glitter as she angles her head, scenting the air carefully. “I have no idea, but there were three wolves here. Do any of them smell familiar? I’m betting they are the ones that attacked her outside her apartment. This proves she was their target all along. Do you think they followed her to the club, too?”

  “No. I don’t. None of the shifters at Toxic paid any attention to her when she was there. They were bent on taking the place down. As peculiar as it seems, I’d say the two events aren’t related.”

  Selene runs her tongue along one of her elongated fangs. “They’re very much related. I can tell you that they are from the same pack. Why they left her alone at Toxic is beyond me, but I scent the same alpha linking the ones that were here with the bodies from the club.”

  “I like hearing they’re the same pack,” Lucius adds from the open door. “That means they’ll all be together. Garrett is searching for their possible location now. We need to be ready to meet him when they find the fuckers.”

  “She’s in trouble. I can feel it,” I snap. “I can’t wait. I need to find her. Now.”

  ‘We all want to find her,” Selene assures me.

  “Garrett and his men have been scouring the city throughout the day. They aren’t within the city limits,” Lucius says.

  "I have a feeling she's east. Up in the Catalinas,” I say as I start walking down the hall, eager to start the hunt.

  “Yes, but there are thousands of miles to search. Garrett is already out there, and so are his men. If you take off you could be hours from her when they do locate her,” Lucius barks.

  I nod, hoping I can hold my shit together. Punching a hole in the wall, I stomp outside. If anything happens to Harper, I will raze the city to the ground. I didn’t want to fall in love with the sassy woman, but it happened anyway. She’s mine and I will kill every last wolf responsible for taking her from me.

  Chapter 12

  Liam

  I park along the dirt at the side of the road and am out of my car before I turn off the engine. I don’t give a fuck if someone steals the car. Harper needs
me. I feel it in every cell in my body.

  I blur across the dirt and past barrel cacti with my dead heart racing in my chest. The sensation nearly makes me run right into the prickly pear. All I can think of is getting to Harper and helping her.

  I sense her more and more the closer I get. And the further I run the angrier I am. The shifters didn’t take her way the fuck out here to court her. They don’t want to be overheard.

  Lucius is right beside me. Knowing he and Selene support me and Harper is all I need. Garrett and his wolves are already here, but I’d feel better having Maximus and the other bouncers at our backs.

  It’s not that I don’t understand why my sire wants to keep the relationship calm with the shifters. We are dealing with the woman I love. The only woman I have ever, or will ever, love. Her safety means more to me than anything.

  The scent of blood carries to my nose on the breeze. My steps falter. Not a good thing when I’m blurring. Unfortunately, I land on a cactus, but don’t feel a thing. It is Harper’s blood. Nothing else registers but that fact.

  I come to my feet with a roar. Someone is going to pay for harming her. My vision goes red and my blood sings with vengeance. Yet when I try to blur into motion, a brick wall stops me.

  I snarl and pull my fist back to punch through the object in my path. My sire’s voice is the only thing that can possibly break through the murderous haze consuming me at that moment.

  “Stop for one second and think, Liam. If you go in there like this, you lose the advantage of surprise and Harper will pay. We are with you, but we need a plan. I don’t trust Garrett’s men to protect what’s yours,” Lucius says, his voice going low with the last part.

  Yes, she’s mine. “I know there are problems, but I’m not letting her go. We will leave if you have a problem with me keeping her. I need you to know that before we go in there.”

  If it changes Lucius’s mind on helping me rescue my love, it will be more difficult; but nothing will stop me from reaching Harper’s side. Many times since my sire found Selene, I have glimpsed a compassionate side, but it has always been directed at his mate. Now, the look Lucius gives me speaks volumes.