Scorched [Pain & Love 3] (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Ashlei D. Hawley

  She’d never met Luke Junior, but Lydia felt Mallory’s hand tense in hers when she recognized the shape of her brother in the formation. Without complaint, Lydia let the other woman squeeze hard. The vise grip of the vampire hurt an insane amount. Lydia distracted herself with the images on screen. She focused on the men on TV as the group of Fallen Angels and human professionals approached the hive entrance. The distressing view helped to keep her mind off the pain.

  “He will be all right,” Lydia repeated. Unblinking, Mallory appeared unaware of Lydia’s words as tears slipped down her ivory cheeks. Lydia felt a surge of sympathy for her. Mallory’s brother was human. He was walking into a den of death. “The Hunters said it’s not a big hive,” Lydia said.

  “And since when have we trusted anything the Hunters say?” Dan interjected in a dark tone.

  “You shut it,” Lydia snapped.

  “The Hunters are going in, as well,” Leigh pointed out as he stroked soothing circles on the back of Mallory’s hand. “The chances are slim they would risk themselves. Look there—they’re even taking the front line.”

  It was true, Lydia noted as she returned her attention to the screen.

  “This is a marketing ploy,” Leigh added. “They blow this, and they destroy all the progress they are trying to make.”

  Mallory wasn’t listening to the exchange. Her attention was all for the swiftly moving, fully armored men advancing with tactical synchronization. Junior moved near the front of the human assembly, gun tucked against his shoulder, frame set with determination. Mallory’s wide blue eyes tracked her younger brother’s progress.

  The peppy voice of a slim, long-haired news anchor narrated the movements of the officers and their associates. She sounded excited and intrigued, not at all worried about the group of beings that had wreaked havoc and death all through her viewing area. All about the numbers, baby, Lydia thought grimly.

  “The first officers have made their way into the dangerous location claimed to be a ‘vampire den.’” With her use of air quotations around the words and a smug smirk on wine red lips, the reporter made it appear as though the story she’d been chosen to cover was an amusing Halloween prank instead of a true threat. Lydia wanted to strangle the stupid, plastic bitch. Every person she made take this threat less seriously was one easier target for Henry and his growing army of hungry vamps.

  The reporter’s elastic expression sobered as she continued. “The group inside could be composed of the men and women responsible for the shocking string of gruesome murders that have recently taken the lives of so many of our fellow citizens. I am told police are entering with utmost caution and will defend themselves with extreme prejudice.”

  “She’s just speculating,” Mallory said. Her whisper carried spikes of annoyance. “None of them would have told her anything.”

  “You tell the bitch,” Lydia said, encouraging Mallory as she patted the back of vampire’s hand. The young vampire wasted a smile on Lydia before returning her attention to the drama on screen. Junior and four other men had entered behind the Hunters.

  The reporter turned to look at the men, some waiting, some moving, and some speaking to each other. She appeared to feel the distance from the hive entrance to where she stood ensured her safety. The daylight was the only thing that did it. Had it been night, she’d have already been a snack.

  “It seems more of the officers are entering.”

  Thanks for the update, Mistress of the Obvious, Lydia thought.

  She was about to suggest the Hunters’ had received wrong information. It probably wasn’t even a den.

  And then the screaming started.

  The reporter stumbled back, almost hitting the camera. Her carefully painted mouth gaped, revealing perfect pearly teeth and a small pink tongue that strove to move and formulate words.

  Lydia cried out when Mallory crushed her fingers in her vampiric grip. Jerking her hand away, Lydia praised her foresight for at least giving Mallory her nondominant hand. The panicking vampire had broken at least two fingers.

  “Oh, Lord, I’m so sorry!” Mallory exclaimed. She divided her attention between the chaos erupting on the TV and the cursing, injured Lydia. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, agony in her voice.

  The camera couldn’t penetrate the darkness of the abandoned building being used by the hive, but several men stumbled out of the yawning mouth of the doorway. Their guns had either been abandoned or, as was the case with one man, had been shoved through body armor and flesh alike, impaling vital organs with the very weapon the soldier had taken along to protect himself and others with.

  * * * *

  Inside the hive, Junior shouted to his fellow officers and ignored the men they’d come in with. It was a cluster fuck in the den. The group of strange men known as Hunters had said that it would be a small one and that in the daytime, the creatures would be weakened, slow. They were feral and lightning fast. Instead of the five to ten Junior and the others had expected, there were dozens. Throats were torn open, armor pushed aside like paper. Limbs were broken. Men who had trained for decades to handle combat were disarmed as easily as children.

  Far back in the midnight-dark recesses of the building, where some of the first of his fellows had been dragged, Junior saw confusing images of blood being poured from one open wound to another.

  The beam of light from the device on his shoulder lit the men being drained and men being …changed. Junior almost guaranteed that’s what happened with the men caught in the crimson embraces of the creatures they’d come to destroy. There was an incomprehensible amount of blood. He smelled it, tasted it, felt it congealing under the thick soles of his boots.

  As he moved toward the group in the back, intending to put his comrades out of their misery, Junior felt motion beside him. He snapped to the side, bringing his fully automatic weapon up in a smooth arc. He wasn’t going down without taking at least one of the killers with him.

  The blur of motion solidified into a tall, pale woman with dead, doll-like eyes and a spill of blood coating her from nose to navel. She smiled at Junior and was on him before he could move his finger to the trigger.

  * * * *

  Becoming increasingly worried as she noticed none of the men who’d entered the cave were coming back out in good condition, Lydia stood and moved toward Daria. The youngest of the Dragons cradled her sister’s hands with all the tenderness of a healing angel. She couldn’t actually heal the injuries when she couldn’t transform, but the soothing essence she radiated calmed Lydia all the same.

  “Don’t worry about it, Mal,” Lydia said of her broken fingers. “Seriously. You’ve been trying to break something of mine since we met. About time you succeeded.” She flashed Mallory a grin to ensure the other woman knew she was joking. Mallory still looked distressed.

  “Three broken,” Daria murmured. “Part of the hand itself is definitely damaged. You need to go to a doctor.”

  “If any of them are even still here, they’ve got enough work, I bet,” Lydia muttered. “We’ll set them here. You can do it, little mother.”

  Distracted by the TV, Lydia didn’t see Daria’s look of exasperation. Mallory stood, and Leigh followed his youngling off the couch.

  “You can’t go after them now,” he insisted. “You can’t. They don’t know about our resistance to fire yet. We risk our greatest advantage if you go.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  She didn’t scream it, didn’t let her panic spill into shrillness in her voice or anger in her mind. She said it matter-of-factly, looking at Leigh in a way that begged his understanding.

  “We’ll go,” Dan spoke up. “Lydia and I will go.”

  “Broken hand,” Lydia pointed out while Daria splinted and bandaged the injury. “Not gonna be a lot of help.”

  “I don’t want you to be,” Dan said, slipping into his boots and tying them up. “Just ride along.”

  “Sold,” Lydia said as Daria tightly wrapped her hand.

 
The youngest of the Dragon sisters muttered, “Idiot,” under her breath when Lydia slid into her own shoes, thankful there were no straps or strings to mess with.

  “I did hear that,” Lydia said and kissed Daria on the nose. “Also, Mal, with what just happened, they’d light you up soon as they saw you out there. We can pass as human.” Well, one of us doesn’t even have to try anymore, Lydia reminded herself. The thought surprised her, and she found herself worried for Dan as they went for the door.

  “Then go,” Mallory said, defeated. “Do what you can to bring him back to me.”

  Lydia met Dan’s gaze and ignored the heat that jumped between their locked attention. “You’re driving.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lydia and Dan drove in silence for the first five minutes of their journey. When Dan finally spoke up, the words were not encouraging.

  “He’s probably dead.”

  “Probably,” Lydia agreed.

  “Are we supposed to bring back his body?” he asked. He turned the car into the long dirt drive that would lead them to the abandoned park ranger building. Lydia had been to the park often throughout her life and sometimes still took walks through the expanse of tall trees. She probably would never walk there again, though.

  “If we can, I’m sure Mallory would appreciate it,” Lydia said at length. She gripped the handle on the car door as Dan navigated his turns through fleeing people and hastily moved blockades. A careening news van nearly clipped the right front side of their vehicle. Dan whipped the wheel to the side, almost planting them into a tree to avoid the collision. Sparing no concern for them, the van continued on its way. Lydia wondered if the blonde Barbie newscaster was inside. The spiteful part of her whispered that it hoped not before Lydia quashed the thought. No one deserved that, especially not someone who’d been cold and callous out of simple ignorance and training.

  “Almost there,” Dan said, slowing the car’s speed farther. She nodded.

  “There are a few of the army vans,” she said, pointing at the green vehicles lined up near the ranger station. Four of them stood idling, empty of their human freight. Two police cars, likewise running and empty, occupied the space on the other side of the abandoned building. Bodies littered the ground, most of them in uniform and sporting military-grade weaponry. Lydia didn’t recognize any of their local boys on the ground. She knew they were looking for a blonde, medium-sized man in a local uniform. All the dead and dying outside were soldiers.

  “He must be inside,” Lydia commented as Dan parked the vehicle.

  “Dead or alive.”

  “Do you think the vamps are still around?” Lydia asked.

  Dan studied the layout of the building as he thought about how he would respond. “If they are, we need to find a way to get some light in there. I don’t want to be turned human just to have a blood sucker tear out my throat.”

  Lydia wondered about the ramifications of Dan being human. Even when she died, her heart was returned to a human body and her Dragon soul lived on. She’d been on the Earth for centuries, as Dan had been in his time as a Fallen. What would happen now, she wondered, that he was no longer an angel of any kind? Would his human soul follow the process others did, where his consciousness was not aware of previous incarnations when he was reborn? The thought made sorrow pour through her, hot as the flames of anger usually did.

  Even if he infuriated her, kept things from her, made her feel like she wanted to pummel him into dust, she still felt wracked by grief to think of him dying and not remembering the time they’d had together. Every time they met, if they ever did again, she would know him and he wouldn’t remember her. The notion filled her with sadness and fear.

  “Stay here,” Lydia commanded. Her voice was harsher than she’d expected it to be. “I can burn them, at least. You’re worse than useless in a fight against even a single vamp right now. You’d be a total liability.”

  “Glad to know my worth,” Dan grumbled, but he didn’t protest the necessity of him staying behind. “I guess I’ll play lookout. Or whatever.”

  Lydia found herself fighting to hold onto the anger she held toward him. He’d held back information for what he’d thought were good reasons. He pissed her off, but he’d given her hope to be reunited with her mother. That was a gift, and his continued involvement with their cause, even when the danger was now greatest for him, was a gift, as well.

  A peculiar feeling of acceptance and peace ballooned within her and nestled warmly in her core. Whatever stupid things he’d done, she believed his main drive had always been to protect her. That was worth something. It was worth forgiveness.

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. A light brush of lips on scratchy skin, but it ignited flames that moved from her mouth to the rest of her body. Every point of contact their bodies made was an instant inferno.

  “What was that for?” he asked. He looked pleased at the unexpected contact.

  “You’re stupid,” she told him. “But you’re my stupid. Don’t lie to me anymore, all right? Don’t keep anything else from me. If you’re a good boy, you might be in for a treat later.”

  “I like the sound of that,” Dan said. He looked toward the park ranger station as they both exited the vehicle and closed their doors. Dan left the car running, in case they had a need to leave in a rush. “Don’t die in there, Lydia.”

  “Not planning on it,” she said, assuring him.

  As she walked toward the open door to the abandoned building, she let flames envelop her right hand. Anyone inside that came at her would be roasted. She wouldn’t take any chances. Knowing that anyone inside was dead, dying, or worse, she had no fear of the flames spreading to innocent victims. The entire place would likely burn, and she was good with that.

  Directly inside the building, two vamps with blood-covered mouths hissed at her. They were dust before she’d crossed three feet inside the threshold. The windows were covered with thick black fabric, and Lydia set fire to those, as well. As the room burned, sunlight filtered in and took care of several of the other bloody enemies. Soldiers and Hunters undergoing The Turn caught fire, as well. Lydia counted no less than thirty original vampires. More than half the men who’d gone into eradicate the nest were in the process of being converted. The others began to burn as flames licked their way along the walls and greedily sucked at the aged, dirty carpet.

  Lydia took out any vampire that came too close to her. She flipped over one of the local uniforms and knelt to slip his head from his combat helmet. Short, night-dark hair let her know it wasn’t Junior. She moved on.

  Midway through the room, Lydia saw a group of vampires collapsed upon each other. They’d not been scorched by the sunlight, and the fires hadn’t reached them yet. Near the pile, another man in a local uniform rested on his side. Lydia thought she saw him breathing.

  Moving quickly to the only other local officer she’d seen, Lydia torched another one of the vampires that rushed her from the shaded part of the room. She set more fires to the window coverings before kneeling beside the fallen officer and gingerly turning him over.

  He’d already removed his own helmet or had it forcibly taken off by one of his assailants. His hair was a spill of thick sandy blond, and Lydia recognized the same nose shape and facial structure as his sister. It was Junior, Lydia was certain, and he was alive.

  Frowning, Lydia wondered how she was going to get him out of there. Vampires burned around her, lighting up areas of the room Lydia hadn’t doused in flame. The structure was beginning to lose its integrity. She couldn’t burn, but she could die if she was buried underneath collapsing rubble. She needed to get Junior and get out.

  The smoke billowing through the room made him cough. Lydia bent down and began unbuckling his bulletproof vest. If she had to drag him out, she needed him to weigh less.

  While she removed the vest and his utility belt, Lydia glanced at the vampire pile beside him. They looked strange. All of them had veins of pronounced silver blue over all
their exposed flesh, including their faces.

  When Lydia rolled Junior over, he groaned in pain. She saw his neck. There were multiple deep puncture wounds. He’d been bitten several times, but he wasn’t dead or turned. How had he not been drained by that many bites?

  Junior’s soft brown eyes fluttered open. They were hazy with pain and confusion. “What,” he started to ask, but a fit of coughing stole the rest of his words.

  “We have to get out of here,” Lydia told him. “We have to go. Can you stand?”

  “I don’t think so,” Junior whispered. He clutched at his neck. “It burns.”

  “Well, we don’t need you to walk with your neck,” Lydia said harshly. “Come on, get up. I can’t carry you out of here, Junior.”

  Suspicion sharpened his blurry eyes when she said his name. “You know me?”

  “Friend of your sister,” Lydia said with a grunt as she helped him stand. He swayed, as she expected. He’d lost a crazy amount of blood, and it would make him weak and dizzy. They didn’t have time for it, though. The building burned around them. In moments, the inferno would claim them both.

  “Mal sent you,” Junior said with a smile.

  The softness in his voice made Lydia smile back even as part of the room collapsed far too close to them for her comfort. “Yep, and she will kick my ass to Hell and back if I found you alive and then let you burn to death. Let’s get out of here.”

  Half-supporting, half-dragging Junior, Lydia painstakingly crossed the floor, finding a fireless path wherever she could. Junior was dead weight at times, and if the heat hadn’t been incredible, she still would have been pouring sweat from the exertion of practically carrying him out of the death trap. As it was, she felt drained in a thousand different ways before they’d even made it halfway to the door.