The Vampire Awakenings Bundle: Books 1-5

by Davies, Brenda K.

  Her eyes slid over the people gathered around them. “I know, but what if I can’t find him?”

  “Then we’ll figure something else out tomorrow.”

  “No. He may not know we’re here yet, but the longer we’re here, the more likely he might sense me too. This has to be taken care of tonight.”

  Ian ran his hands over her shoulders. “Don’t put so much pressure on yourself.”

  “You don’t know; you can’t understand what it’s like to live with him in your shadow all of the time,” she whispered.

  No, he couldn’t understand what she’d gone through, but he couldn’t stand the look on her face, or that she was beating herself up right now. “Relax and go with your instincts,” Brian instructed. “Even if it seems silly to you, follow them and see where they take you. Like I said, this isn’t a true bond, it’s more of an impulse.”

  Paige continued to search the walkway. The talking and laughing crowd parted around them as they remained standing outside the casino doors. “This way,” she said and turned to her left.

  She had no idea where she was going, no idea if there really was anything drawing her onward, but walking was better than standing there blocking the way. The others stayed close by her as she led the way through four casinos with no luck. After the fifth casino, and with a lot more to go, she began to realize the only thing drawing her onward was her feet. Stepping outside of the last casino, she shuddered as the heat enveloped her once more.

  Ian wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Maybe we should call it quits for tonight,” he suggested. “If you relax…”

  “No, he could find us,” she protested.

  “Paige…”

  “One more,” she insisted. “It’s still early, well for Vegas standards at least.”

  Ian gave a brief nod. “Ok, one more, but then we’re going back to the hotel.”

  “Where do you want to go?” Brian inquired.

  His ice colored eyes burned into hers when she met them. She could feel him urging her on, but he didn’t say a word as he leaned against the building and waited for her to decide. Paige took a deep breath to steady herself. She stood, searching the night and hoping for something out there to start calling to her, to draw her onward toward the man she sought.

  “Just relax,” Ian said as he massaged her shoulders.

  There was no way for her to relax, not tonight. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that if they didn’t find him tonight, he would find them. She much preferred to have the element of surprise on their side, and not to have her father be the one to jump out and yell, ‘boo!’

  Her gaze ran up and down the swarming streets past the people laughing and talking. She looked beyond the jugglers and artists and the blazing lights of the neon signs. Everything was extremely loud, and it was all so much, but there was a vibe about the city, an energy that made it feel like the only place on earth. She could almost believe everything beyond the strip had vanished.

  She really understood the whole, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, thing now. This place was its own little world. A world her father lurked within.

  Taking a deep breath, she stepped off the sidewalk and into the bustle of the busy streets. Ian stayed close by her side as she wandered past a few other casinos before arriving at another one. Stepping inside, a smile quirked her mouth when she spotted the man dressed as a pharaoh standing by the door. She knew Brian hoped she could tap into some strange vampire power, but it had probably been curiosity that had caused her to choose this place next.

  Everywhere she looked, people crowded around. There were more of them in here than she’d seen in any of the other casinos they’d been into. She couldn’t tell if it was the slot machines or her ears ringing so badly, but it became difficult to concentrate on anything with all of the sounds, smells and humans in the room.

  Ian held Paige against his side as they moved through the casino, protecting her from the people pressing against them. He pushed back a drunken young man who stumbled into her. “Hey baby,” the drunk slurred in her face, causing Paige to recoil from the rancid, overwhelming scent of him.

  “If you ever want to fuck another woman, you’ll back off!” Ian snarled at him.

  Sobriety briefly flickered through the man’s eyes as he wheeled backward and nearly took out a passing waiter. The man turned away; he glanced over his shoulder before vanishing into the crowd. Ian had the urge to start stiff-arming everyone who came close to her as more people pressed against them.

  He understood why vampires like Paige’s father came here; it was an easy place to pick unsuspecting victims up and drain them. Easy to kill them and dispose of their bodies before their friends and loved ones realized they were missing. The noise would bury any screams they issued; the alcohol would lower inhibitions and common sense.

  He’d give anything to get Paige out of here, but she wasn’t backing down. She stood on her tiptoes to survey the crowd before dropping down again. “I have a pretty good view,” he told her with a forced smile. “Do you think he’s here?”

  Paige frowned as she contemplated his question. “I don’t know. I don’t understand what Brian thinks I might be able to do.”

  “No one does.” The words were joking, but he could sense her growing disquiet and strain. The incessant chatter and ringing of the machines felt like a hundred people were scratching their nails down a chalkboard to him. He could only imagine what it was doing to Paige’s newly heightened senses.

  “Let’s split up,” Ian suggested to the others. “We’ll cover a lot more ground that way.”

  They broke off into little groups to make their way through the casino, searching for the man in Paige’s drawing. After a half an hour, he pulled her into a secluded alcove when her stress began to beat against him as forcefully as John Bonham on the drums. Her eyes were blood shot; her lips compressing into a thin line were nearly white. When he lifted her hands and clasped them before him, they trembled in his grasp.

  “We’re leaving.”

  “No!” she gasped. “Not yet!”

  “The others can continue to look for him, but I’m not letting you do this to yourself anymore.”

  Behind her dark glasses her eyes sparked with fire as she met his gaze. That sign of her unraveling control caused him to step closer in an attempt to shelter her further. “You’re not letting me do anything, this is my decision,” she grated through her teeth.

  “And if you accidentally hurt someone or give away what you are?” he demanded. “Your eyes are red now.”

  Her jaw clenched, a muscle twitched in her cheek. Her fingers flew up to the corners of her eyes before falling limply back to her side. “If he remains free again tonight, he could kill someone else. The longer he roams free, the more of a risk he is to innocent people and us.”

  He rested his hand against her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin. “You are not responsible for your father’s actions. You never were.”

  “You don’t understand,” she whispered.

  “You’re blaming yourself, but when do you think you could have stopped him? When you were a child? When you were only a teenager? When you were being used as hunter bait? When exactly were you supposed to have killed him?”

  A single tear slid down her face; she rested her hand over his. “He created me in more ways than one. He made me the person I am today; he brought me to you.”

  He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her forehead before pulling her against his chest and cradling her there. “I know, but you’re nothing like him. You never could be anything like him.”

  “You saw him that night in the alley; you saw my drawing of him. I look so much like him.”

  “So? That’s DNA. You’re soul,” he pressed his hand against her chest. “has nothing to do with him, and you are good. You’re the strongest, most loving and beautiful woman I’ve ever met, and he had nothing to do with that. You can’t beat yourself up because yo
u were born. You may look like him, but it sounds to me like you inherited your mother’s spirit.”

  Another tear slipped free; she wiped it hastily away. “Thank you.”

  “It’s simply the truth. Don’t ever doubt it.” She smiled at him before her gaze traveled past him to the milling crowd. “It’s time for us to go.”

  “Yes, ok,” she finally relented.

  His shoulders slumped, he kissed her clasped hands and held them against his lips. “We will find him,” he vowed.

  “I know.”

  He took a step out of the alcove, but she pulled him abruptly back. She’d made it this far on determination, but she found she couldn’t walk out there right now. Inside she was beginning to feel like she’d just drunk ten cups of espresso in an hour. “I need a minute first.”

  Ian stepped closer against her in the hopes of blocking out the overwhelming sensations of the casino with his body. Pushing her further back, he maneuvered her behind a large potted plant. Anybody walking by probably wouldn’t notice him, and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to see her.

  Heaving breaths caused her body to shake; she pressed her hands into his chest and her forehead fell against him. Looking over his shoulder, he scanned the crowd for any looming threat, but he caught no whiff of danger, and the only vampires he saw were Brian, Aiden and Ronan winding their way through the Craps tables.

  Turning back to her, he lifted her hands and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “You must feed.”

  Her eyes flashed red when they flickered up to him. “No, there’s too many people,” she protested. “I’ll be fine, I’m not hungry.”

  “And none of them will see us,” he assured her. “You’re hungrier than you realize and my blood will calm you a lot more.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but his stubbornness thrummed against her mind. He’d do anything in the world for her, but he wasn’t going to back down from this. His lips brushed across her forehead, his breath warmed her when he drew her closer, nestling her mouth against the hollow of his throat. He moved her so her back was flat against the wall. She couldn’t see anything beyond him.

  She hadn’t realized she was hungry until she felt the beat of his pulse beneath her mouth. Without meaning to, her fangs sprang free of their own volition and pressed against his supple skin. She grabbed hold of his arms in an attempt to steady and calm herself. With the next beat of his heart, she sank her fangs into his throat. The surge of his warm, sweet blood filling her calmed her almost instantly. A breath of relief escaped her as she melted against him. His arms enveloped her, pulling her flush against his body.

  “Paige,” he murmured.

  She could feel the bliss radiating from him as she fed from him, feel his growing arousal, but he pushed aside his own baser urges as he sought to comfort her. The way he felt for her could never be denied, he was completely enraptured with her; she was everything to him. The edginess, anxiety, and lack of control she’d been feeling before stepping into this alcove vanished as his blood, body and mind soothed her.

  Her teeth retracted from his neck, her eyes behind her glasses were back to their normal color when she lifted her head to look at him. “Feel better?” he inquired.

  She flashed him a sensual smile that caused his dick to jump eagerly. “Much.” She ran her tongue across her lips to lick away the remnants of his blood. “And more than ready to get back to our room.”

  A low rumble of pleasure escaped him. “You keep looking at me like that and we won’t make it back to the room.”

  “Promise?”

  “Tease,” he muttered.

  “Oh, I plan to do much more than just tease you.”

  Paige laughed when a low growl escaped him; he grabbed hold of her hand and hurriedly led her from the alcove. Keeping her against his side, he entered the rush of the crowd again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Paige’s foot tapped as she watched the floors lighting up above the elevator doors. She stood against Ian’s side, taking solace in the overwhelming strength emanating from his body while she fought the urge to tear his clothes off. They may not have found her father, but she planned to keep herself pleasantly distracted from the reality of him lingering out there.

  In her mind, she mentally planned exactly what she was going to do to him. He’d always taken the lead, but tonight she would keep him at her mercy. As soon as they got back to their room, she was calling room service and ordering some strawberries, whip cream, and champagne.

  Her heart began to beat faster; she bit on her bottom lip as her hands dug into his side. Ian’s amusement tickled her mind, she noticed the others had all become focused on the doors. Of course, she realized, as vampires they would be able to sense and smell her heightened desire. A blush crept up her cheeks, but she found she didn’t care what they knew. All she wanted was out of this elevator.

  The doors finally opened with a ding and the others disembarked with a goodbye and a wave. The doors slid closed again, and the elevator continued its smooth, upward ascent. “I can’t wait to get back to the room,” she murmured.

  Ian released a small laugh and kissed the top of her head. “And what do you intend to do there?”

  The wicked smile she shot him almost made him hit the stop button on the elevator, but he’d sensed her thoughts, and there was no way he was going to put an end to anything she had planned for the night. He was so ensnared by the scent of her burgeoning lust that he didn’t pick up on another aroma until the elevator came to a stop. Before the doors slid open, he knew something was wrong as the fetid odor of a landfill washed over him. He sprang forward to try and stop the doors from opening, but it was already too late.

  Paige didn’t have a chance to take a step forward before Ian grabbed hold of her arm and pushed her behind him. Thrown off by his rough treatment of her, she barely had time to recover before her back was slammed into the wall of the elevator. Her spine screamed in protest as it was shoved unmercifully into the metal railing running around the interior of the elevator.

  The rough jostling caused her glasses to fall off. They crunched beneath Ian’s feet as he adjusted his feet and swung his arm up in a rapid uppercut. Whoever Ian hit, he did so with so much force that the thunderous crack of bone echoed through the confining space. The person shot through the air like a bullet and smashed off the top of the elevator. The roof thrust upward with a piercing screech of metal that left a concave dent in the ceiling. Bits of metal, paint and debris floated down around them, briefly filling the air and blocking out the hotel wall the open elevator doors had revealed.

  It wasn’t until whomever it was plummeted away from the ceiling and smashed into the floor that Paige realized it was a man and a vampire. The man remained splayed face down on the ground, knocked unconscious by Ian’s punch. Ian bent, grabbed the unconscious vampire by the back of his shirt, and heaved him out the door with enough force to crack the wall across from them. Plaster rained down on the man’s unconscious form when he slumped to the floor.

  Paige couldn’t stop herself from gawking when she realized Ian had hit him violently enough to tear half of his head from his neck. It flopped to the side to reveal part of his spine, the muscles, and ligaments severed by the blow. Paige didn’t know if it had been enough to kill the vampire, but he remained unmoving as blood poured from the grotesque mutilation.

  She felt far more powerful as a vampire than she had as a human, still, there was no way she could nearly, literally, knock someone’s head off with one punch.

  “Stay here!” Ian shouted at her.

  Before she could respond, he vanished out the closing elevator doors. He moved so fast, he never set off the sensor that would have stopped them from shutting. She gawked after him, too stunned to move for a second. And then she realized he had vanished into that hall, where more vampires were probably waiting for him.

  “Ian!” she screamed and raced forward. She crashed up against the closed doors, leaving a dent in them as th
e elevator began to ascend once more.

  Her blood pressure rose, heat burned in her cheeks as a scream of frustration burned her throat. Her fingers twitched as she fought the urge to claw the metal doors open. She had no idea what prying them open would get her, other than a glimpse of the concrete wall shaft and possibly stuck in between floors while Ian dealt with whatever was going on below. The static laced, distorted elevator music playing from the dented speaker above her, made her teeth grate as she fought the urge to rip her hair out and smash herself against the door again.

  A loud bang resonated beneath her. The entire elevator shaft shook, causing the car to lurch beneath her feet. Her stomach plummeted; her breath caught in her chest as she waited for the snapping sound of the cable that would precede the floor falling out from beneath her feet.

  The walls around her made a groaning noise that caused her heart to leap into her throat. Immortal or not, plummeting thirty floors to the ground below was not her idea of a good time. She glanced at the floor beneath her, wishing immortality had also come with some x-ray vision. What had caused that bang? Where was Ian?

  Heart hammering, she reached out for Ian’s mind. His bloodlust beat against her, but so did his pain. A scream tore from her, when she realized he’d been injured. Knowing it was useless, she still flung herself at the horrible doors blocking her way. The sounds coming from her were anything but human; she felt like a Tasmanian Devil on a rampage as she clawed at the doors. She didn’t care if it was a concrete wall across from her, she’d tear it apart with her bare hands if she had to.

  Then, with a peaceful sounding ding completely out place with this situation, the doors opened to reveal the hushed hallway beyond. She stepped into the peaceful Twilight Zone of this floor, while below chaos and death reigned supreme. It all seemed so strange that she half expected someone to hand her a cup of tea.

  She didn’t bother trying to go down in the elevator again, but fled down the hall. She barreled past a startled woman who had as much clothes on as a newborn, and was jerking at the knob of her locked hotel room. Paige kept her head turned away from the woman as she banged into the stairwell door and flung it open.