by Laura Kaye
Brilliant red rage displaced the fear and set her senses on high alert.
All her calm disappeared and morphed into stone-cold protectiveness and fierce possessiveness. He is mine. No one will take him.
Operating on instinct, Kate’s hand found and removed the SIG from her jeans, a dark satisfaction flooding her as she returned the decocking lever to its live position. She was so damn glad he’d gone for her left wrist, leaving her dominant hand free to shoot. If necessary.
Holding the gun out over his body, she aimed for the darkness of the driveway. Her heart lodged in her throat, but her hand held steady.
Three hulking shapes stepped into the dim light behind the building.
“Jesus, we found him,” one of them said.
“Fuck. The human’s armed,” another called.
Before she’d even blinked, they’d disappeared. “Drop your weapon,” a deep male voice barked.
As if. She whispered, “You have to wake up now, vampire. There are others here. And I don’t know if they’re friend or foe. Please. Wake up.”
“Drop your weapon,” the unseen man barked again. “Last chance.”
“No way. Leave us alone. We’re not your business,” she said with more bravado than she felt.
“The hell you’re not—”
“Enough,” someone commanded. “I’m coming out,” the same voice continued. “And I’m unarmed.” Hands raised, a figure stepped where she could see him.
The man—the vampire, she assumed—was huge. Same dark paramilitary dress and black cap as her vampire wore. Didn’t mean they were on the same side, though.
He pointed with his chin. “He’s hurt.”
Kate glared at him, refusing to be distracted. Her shooting hand remained ready. She had no idea how she was going to get them out of this.
“I’m Mikhail.”
“I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.” Her voice had none of the shakiness she felt in her gut.
He nodded. “Won’t you put the gun down so we can talk about how to help him?” he asked in accented English.
Her vampire’s sucking pulls slowed against her wrist. He groaned and his mouth went slack.
Kate wanted nothing more than to divert her gaze and check on him, assure herself he was still breathing. For the first time, her hand trembled around the gun. Over her frozen cheek, a single tear trickled, leaving a hot saline trail that burned against the cold air.
“His neck,” she whispered in English, forcing her eyes to hold Mikhail’s gaze.
He nodded. “We will help him.”
She shook her head, not daring to believe he was a friend. If she was wrong…
A thought came to mind and she gasped. “What color are his eyes?” she asked. Her plan wasn’t foolproof, but it was better than nothing.
Mikhail cocked his head to the side. “Blue.”
Kate scoffed, her gaze narrowing. They were hardly any old blue.
“Bright, like a sapphire,” he continued.
Kate sucked in a breath to respond, but before she could, a hand clamped over her mouth. Another grabbed her wrist. Her finger squeezed and a single gunshot rang out into the night.
“Get him!” a male voice ordered as she was dragged backward. Commotion erupted around her. Growling. Cursing. Barked commands and replies.
Her own muffled screams added to the fray. “No! No! Don’t hurt him!” Fighting the hold that wrapped around her, she kicked and flailed and squirmed to get free.
“Clear!” someone called. “Oh, shit, Mikhail. It’s bad.”
Kate’s body screamed at the separation from her vampire. The palm of her hand burst into pins and needles. Her throat went tight and dry. She had to get to him.
He was hers. Hers!
“Damnit, Leo! Get control of her. I hear sirens,” a voice demanded.
“Stop fighting,” came a gruff voice at her ear. “Damn it. Be still, human.”
She slammed to the ground and the weight of a knee fell on her chest. Big hands pinned her arms to her sides. Barely able to breathe and her eyesight blurred from the blow to her head, Kate went limp.
A harsh masculine face appeared right before her, his gray eyes—good-guy eyes—boring into hers. “Calm. Sleep. Now,” he intoned.
Her mind went foggy. Darkness closed in around her.
Deep sorrow surrounded her. She’d lost him. That old feeling of foreboding and looming tragedy returned. Now she knew why she’d been feeling that way.
She’d had a purpose. Find her vampire. Protect him. Save him. But she’d failed.
And that devastating thought was the last thing she knew.
Nikolai floated on the edge of consciousness, not wanting to wake from the dream. In it, he was no longer alone, but had a mate who walked at his side. He didn’t know what she looked like, but the sound of her voice, the smell of her skin, the taste of her blood.
Those he would never forget.
Sated by the sacred crimson nectar that flowed from her veins, Nikolai covered her body with his. Entered her. Howled his masculine satisfaction. Moving in her was a revelation of ecstasy and belonging. She clutched at his shoulders and murmured in his ear, You’re gonna be all right. You’re gonna be all right.
His angel, always taking care of him.
“My lord? Wake up. You are safe,” came a deep, familiar voice.
He didn’t want to leave her, to leave that place where he wasn’t alone.
“Come on, brother. Wake up.”
Nikolai surfaced as if he’d been trapped under water for days. Brain sluggish, eyes bleary, mouth full of cotton. He gasped and choked as he tried to make use of his thick tongue.
“Nikolai?” Mikhail’s voice sounded as if from a distance.
In the dim light of the room, Nikolai struggled to make sense of the shapes around him. Slowly, too damn slowly, his eyes regained the ability to focus.
Elbows braced on his knees, Mikhail sat in a chair by the side of his bed. Or, a bed, anyway. White walls and blankets. This wasn’t his room. An infirmary, then, and not the one in their city headquarters. They’d brought him to Vasilievskoe, his ancestral estate about an hour outside Moscow.
In that moment, as their gazes met, his friend’s brown eyes looked as ancient as he actually was. His head sagged on his shoulders and he clasped his hands where they hung between his knees. “I want to fucking kill you.”
Nikolai chuffed out a breath. “Mishka,” he said, infusing an apology into his friend’s nickname.
“Don’t Mishka me.”
He deserved the other man’s anger. What could he say? “I’m sorry.”
Mikhail cursed and shoved out of his seat, the chair screeching against the tile floor. He paced and muttered under his breath. The other man still wore his fighting gear, twisting Nikolai’s gut with guilt.
“How long have I been out?” Nikolai managed to ask as he heaved himself into a sitting position with a groan. The movement made him aware that IVs were attached to the crooks of both arms. And, damn, but everything hurt.
“It’s early afternoon. About ten hours.” Mikhail whirled on him. “Ten goddamn hours I didn’t know if my king, my friend, my brother, would die or live to see another night.”
He winced at the volume of his friend’s outrage. “I was stupid.”
“You were fucking moronic.” He braced his hands on his hips and glared.
The situation wasn’t funny, not in the least, but Nikolai felt the corners of his lips rise. “I’ll concede the point.” Few others had the balls to talk to him this way, but he and Mikhail had always been close, almost like true-blooded brothers. His stomach plummeted. Kyril and Evgeny were gone, but Mikhail was here, and Nikolai was going out of his way to piss on his friendship, wasn’t he.
“Look, Mishka—”
“Save it. I know, all right? I loved them, too. I lost them, too. They might not have been blooded brothers, but they were still my brothers. Like you. Since we were young. So I get it. I do. But
I swear to Christ—” He covered his mouth and turned away.
Nikolai cleared the lump from his throat, cursing himself for failing Mikhail exactly as he knew he would, and dragged them back to safer ground. “So, give me the rundown on my condition.”
Mikhail turned and crossed his arms. “Broken femur and scapula. Bullet passed through the former, lodged in the latter. Doc got it out on the table. Hit to the right side of your neck took out your jugular and nicked your carotid. Lost half your volume of blood. He patched you up, though, and set up the transfusion before we brought you here. Says you’ll survive to be a pain in the ass another day.”
Ignoring the gibe, Nikolai frowned. How the hell had he survived such injuries?
No doubt about it, Anton was a master surgeon, but the blood loss alone…not to mention the poison…
A deep sense of something like déjà vu came over Nikolai. He frowned, suddenly certain he’d forgotten something important. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, hampered some by the connected tubes. “Jesus. What a mess.”
Mikhail sighed. “Yeah. Understatement of the century, my friend. Even more complicated by the girl. We need to decide what to do with her. She’s seen a lot.”
Nikolai narrowed his gaze and tried to decipher the words, but he had no idea what Mikhail was talking about. “What girl?”
Staring at him, Mikhail dropped back into the chair beside the bed. “What girl? The one who saved your life.”
Chapter 5
Kate woke up disoriented, hurting, and pissed off.
She eased into a sitting position, the back of her head throbbing harder as she rose, and tried to make sense of her dim surroundings.
Small, spartan cot, an empty wooden table with a single chair. She looked to the right and gasped. Bars. An iron-barred door.
Was she in jail? Or—she peered at the rough, stone walls—a freaking dungeon?
She flew to her feet and moaned. The small room spun around her. With her head in her hands, she sucked deep breaths until the dizziness passed. Clenching her eyelids, she prayed she’d been having a nightmare. She opened her eyes.
Oh, shit. No such luck.
Outrage bubbled up from Kate’s gut. Surveying the room, she located a high-tech security camera in one corner. Old-looking cell paired with modern surveillance equipment.
The vampires had her. Had to be.
Kate glared into the camera. “Let me out of here, damn you. Do you hear me? You have no right.” Her voice rose with each word until she was shouting, the sound echoing off the stone. Trying the door next, she shouted, “Let me out of here!”
Holding a bar to steady herself, she looked down at her body. Coat gone. Mace gone. Cell phone gone. Her hand flew to her lower back. Gun gone.
But her clothes…they were the same. And they were covered in blood. Her jeans were red and stiff from hips to knees. Smears of blood ruined her pale blue sweater, and the sleeve of it was shredded. She sucked in a breath. Gauze circled her forearm from the heel of her thumb to nearly the crook of her elbow. Spots of maroon seeped through the layers.
The details of the night flooded back to her in vivid color.
Her vampire.
His attack.
Her acceptance.
The arrival of the others.
Kate slid down to her butt, wincing as her tailbone eased against the stone floor, and sagged against the bars. Eyes stinging and throat tight, a confusing maelstrom of emotions washed over her like rough waves in a storm, swamping, tumbling, turning her round and round.
Fear and bewilderment released her tears onto her cheeks. A vampire had fed from her. And she’d let him. She hadn’t fought, not really.
Worse. In the end, she’d liked it, craved it, wanted to give him everything he needed. She’d wanted more.
How could she have so easily turned her back on everything she’d believed? Sitting there on the dirty floor of a freaking dungeon, Kate didn’t even know who she’d been in those long minutes in that alley.
Rage also flowed through her and tensed every muscle in her body until she trembled. She’d found him. She’d helped him. She’d saved him. He was hers. And they’d taken him away, ripped him from her arms, literally.
And now she didn’t even know if he’d survived.
The emotions completely contradicted each other, but that didn’t make them any less true, any less real.
And if that wasn’t enough, Kate’s mind struggled with another set of feelings she would rather just pretend didn’t exist.
Desire. Hot and torturous.
His scent clung to her, concentrated as it was on her clothes, her skin. It made her…want. What? Everything. She thirsted. She hungered. She felt an urgent emptiness between her legs like nothing she’d ever before experienced.
What was happening to her?
Heaving a deep breath, Kate shook her head. No. Enough. She fisted the wetness off her face and wiped the useless tears on her sweater. Shit. If only her head didn’t hurt so bad she could think more clearly.
In the distance, a door clinked as if a lock was disengaged. Footsteps echoed against the stonework.
Using the bars, Kate pulled herself up and stepped back from the door.
A vampire in all black appeared on the other side. Tall, lean, dark blond hair to his shoulders. The left side bore a braid—the mark of a warrior. His features were no less attractive for how unfriendly they were. He had familiar gray eyes.
They stared at each other until the warrior finally threaded his hand through the bars and held out a bottle of water.
Kate crossed her arms. “Like I’d trust that.”
“If we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already. Besides, the cap is sealed.” He thrust the bottle closer. His voice confirmed he was the same one who had hypnotized her in the parking lot, except it was gentler now. He shrugged and placed the bottle on the floor inside the bars. “Suit yourself.” His gaze looked her over from head to toe, and then he turned.
“Wait,” she said. “The vampire…where is he? How is he?” The questions were out of her mouth before she’d even thought to ask them. But then, she burned to know.
The man’s expression darkened, his eyes narrowed. This look she remembered from earlier. “He is of no concern to you.”
Kate scoffed and stifled the more confrontational response on the tip of her tongue. “Like hell. I saved him.” She held out her arm. “And I’ve got this nice little memento to prove it.” Actually, she had no idea what the wound looked like, but it stung and ached like crazy.
He grunted. “That doesn’t make you special. That makes you convenient.”
His words struck her like a punch to the gut. Wasn’t that the very thing she most feared as she’d once considered the possibility of a future with vampires? Dizziness returned and made her eyes throb, but Kate held her stance. No way she was letting him see how much pain she was in, how much his words had affected her. “When can I go?” she asked, voice softer than before.
The vampire shifted feet. “I don’t have that information. I just have water. Drink it or don’t.”
Glaring, Kate threw out her hands. “What is your problem? What did I ever do to you?”
His gaze narrowed and dark light seemed to flare behind his eyes. He stared as if debating, then shook his head. “Drink the water. You lost a lot of blood.”
Cursing under her breath, Kate watched his retreating form through the bars, totally bewildered by the exchange.
Nikolai stared at Mikhail, his brain churning on the words The one who saved your life.
His dream came back to him, only…it wasn’t a dream. Was it? Not all of it, anyway.
Ignoring the hit-by-a-bus pain that racked his body, Nikolai flew forward and swung his legs off the bed. He ripped the IV from his right arm and reached for the left.
“My lord!” Mikhail grabbed his wrist, stilling him. “What are you doing?”
Nikolai ignored his friend’s use of the title. Despite refusi
ng to lead his kingdom, he couldn’t get his warriors to treat him as if they were all the same. And they were. Hell, the others were arguably better—they hadn’t dishonored themselves, and across the board had handled losing two of their comrades far better. After a while, he’d mostly stopped making an issue of the “my lord” crap.
He shrugged off Mikhail’s grip and glared up at him. “Take me to her.”
The warrior shook his head. “You’re hours out of surgery, still low on blood volume, and now bleeding again.” He sighed and gestured at the crook of Nikolai’s arm. “She can wait.”
His tone regarding the girl rankled Nikolai. “She saved me,” he said, mostly to himself, trying out the idea. He struggled to wade through the pain and disorientation to remember what had actually happened. He could hear her voice, feel her arms embracing him… “No… Fuck, no. I attacked her.” He nailed Mikhail with a stare. “Didn’t I?”
“I don’t know.” He scrubbed his face. “When we got there, she was holding you. Defending you with your own gun. Her wrist was a mess, though.”
Nikolai tore out the second IV and rose to his feet before Mikhail had a chance to react. She’d not only saved him, but held him, protected him. He had to see her. To put a face to the deeds, to the jumble of emotions roiling within. “Get me some clothes.”
“Nikolai—”
“Clothes, damnit.” Mikhail nodded and left, and Nikolai sagged against the mattress.
Why the hell was he acting this way? So she’d fed him. So what? Feeding from humans wasn’t remarkable, though none had ever rearranged his insides the way the mere idea of this one seemed to.
He just needed to put a face to the actions. Appease his curiosity. That would drive away this incessant yearning to get to her, to be with her.
He pushed off the bed and crossed to the sink. Aw, he looked like hell.
Blood-matted, tangled hair. He peeled back the thick gauze on the right side of his neck. The crisscrossing black of the stitches stood out in sharp relief against the angry red of the healing wound. A few more hours and he could remove them altogether. He dropped the bandage to the trash can.
