He grinned, gave me a little wave, and I scrambled to the opposite side of the car. A glance at the side mirror showed me Dante—fingers extended in long, sharp feline claws—fending off three vampires. The second he fought one off, another rushed him. Their limbs moved in a flurry of punches, each one I heard as it connected against bone and flesh.
“Unlock the door, Hannah.”
The sound of Mr. Restricted’s voice sent a shiver down my spine.
“Fuck you.” I raised the gun, aimed it at his face.
If I were Ella, I’d have already fired. Then again, if I were my badass sister, my hand wouldn’t have shaken so badly I couldn’t get a good grip on the trigger. My stalker smiled at me and in my mind, his image merged with Lizbeth’s. Pain pulsed where my neck met my shoulder, the spot the vampire queen had repeatedly sunk her fangs into.
“How precious. Honey, you aren’t going to shoot me. Now be a good girl and put down the gun.”
I repeated my father’s training and tried to take comfort in the remembered sound of his voice echoing in my head as if he were speaking, guiding me… “Raise the barrel of the gun to the target. Turn your free hand palm up and place it underneath your dominant hand and cup the side of the hand holding the gun and the bottom of the grip. Wrap your fingers and thumb around the dominant hand to support it.”
As I said it, I did it.
“Place your finger on the trigger, take a deep breath and hold it. Squeeze your hand around the grip of the gun to press the trigger. Do not pull or yank on the trigger as this can cause your shot to pull to the side.”
I held my breath, lined up the spot between Mr. Restricted’s wide-set eyes and pressed the trigger. Two things happened at once—the recoil sent my arm flying back and the window exploded. The ringing in my ears was so fierce it made me dizzy. What it didn’t do was stop the vampire.
He reached into the shot-out window, popped the lock and, calm as you please, opened the door. He climbed into the cab of the truck. I tried to scramble back, but my spine was already pressed against the driver’s-side door and window. I fumbled with the lock behind me, couldn’t pull up the knob.
Mr. Restricted reached for my ankle, his cold fingers brushing against skin. I kicked his hand away, popped the button on the door and shoved it open. I fell onto the gravel outside of the driver’s side and smacked the back of my head on the hard ground.
We never stood a chance.
My vampire stalker vanished from inside the truck and reappeared in front of me. He grabbed a fist full of my hair, yanked me to my feet and spun me around so his chest lined my back. I grabbed his arm, ducked, tried to gouge his legs with the points of my heels.
“Dante!” I screamed.
My lover turned at the sound of my voice, his face twisted into a snarl of rage. Blood dripped from his eye, his nose, the corner of his mouth. My head spun. My vision narrowed. No. No. No. Not the time to pass out!
I closed my eyes to block out the sight, but it didn’t help. Once I saw something, I couldn’t un-see it. A cold, sharp blade pressed against my neck and my struggles stopped. The urge to vomit faded and I dug my nails into the forearm I tried to pry away from my throat.
“Valliant effort, lion, but you lose.” Mr. Restricted panted against my ear and kept talking, “Stop resisting or I’ll slit her throat.”
Something large and heavy thudded to the ground and I opened my lids. Dante, knees to the ground, head forced into a bowed position by three vampires holding him, knelt a few feet away from me with his arms twisted behind his back. His chest rose and fell with deep, angry breaths. He lifted his head just enough to meet my gaze.
In warning, the edge of the blade against my throat pressed deeper and nicked skin. I barely felt the pain, not when the sorrow in Dante’s eyes hurt so much worse.
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
“Fight like hell, Hannah. No matter what they say or promise you, they’re going to kill me in the end, you remember that. Don’t let them use me as leverage.”
“Tranq him,” Mr. Restricted ordered.
“No!” I screamed, struggled, sent the knife against my skin digging deeper.
One of the vampires holding Dante let go long enough to withdraw a capped syringe from his breast pocket. He popped off the lid, plunged the needle into Dante’s jugular and injected.
Dante’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and his face went slack. The vampires let go and my fierce lion fell face-first on the side of the road. Mr. Restricted dropped the blade at my throat, grabbed my arm and dragged me to the waiting black Lincoln town car. One of the vampires opened the door for him and Mr. Restricted nodded his thanks.
He shoved me into a backseat that was separated from the front by a black glass partition. “Put the shifter in the trunk, we’re taking him with us. I plan on making him watch.”
I settled against the far side of the car and tried the door. Locked. The second my stalker slid in beside me, his door shut from the outside and sealed us inside together.
“Alone at last. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Cash Vladimir, former guard to the queen.”
I glowered at the hand he held for me to shake. The entire car rocked as Dante’s limp body was dumped in the trunk. The thunk of the lid shutting made my stomach hurt.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
He licked his lips and trailed his gaze down the line of my chest where, despite the odds, my breasts were still concealed. “Everything.”
I wrinkled my noise at him. “How very specific of you,” I said in disgust.
His blue eyes glowed even brighter. “You’re to become my vampire queen.”
“You’ve got me confused with my sister. I’m not a vampire.” I stated the obvious and figured if he was talking, he wasn’t hurting me. The longer I stayed alive, the better. Eventually someone would notice Dante and I weren’t where we were supposed to be.
The car pulled onto the freeway and the sudden acceleration forced me back against the seat.
“No,” Cash said. “But you will be after I turn you. Julian thinks he can just take whatever he wants.” He curled his hands into fists. “He is nothing more than a pussy-whipped pretty-boy. Rumor has it, Lizbeth’s unique genetics run through your familial line. If your sister became a queen, it stands to reason so will you.”
“I was adopted.”
“Nice try. I’ve done my research well, even had a DNA test done to confirm what I already knew.”
I didn’t even want to know how he’d obtained a sample of my DNA.
“My sister is going to tear you apart limb from limb.”
“Your sister is nothing but a child.”
“Where are you taking us?”
“Somewhere private—a place where we can take our time and get acquainted with each other.”
He slid across the seat and stroked a finger down my cheek. I recoiled, tried to scoot away but I was already backed into the corner.
“Such soft skin,” he purred, cupping my cheek. “I bet you taste amazing.”
Cash gripped my thigh with one hand, my hair with the other. He yanked me against him. I balled my fist, slammed it against his cheek. His head reared back from the blow, but he didn’t let me go.
“You’ll pay for that, you little bitch,” he snarled and spit a mouthful of blood in my face.
The warm spray hit my mouth and cheeks as he pinned me to the seat. He pressed his hips between my legs, forcing my thighs apart. Blood dripped from his mouth and the second my gaze locked onto the red liquid, the spins started. His cock was hard and disgusting against the core of me.
I shook my head back and forth, bucked my hips in an attempt to dislodge him. His chuckle rolled over me and he tightened his grip where he manacled my wrists with his hands.
He bared bloody fangs, dropped his head to my neck and tore into flesh. I cried out at the ripping pain. He moaned, drank deeper. He let go of my wrist and reached between us to shove my dress up my
thighs.
I heard Dante’s deep rumbling voice in my head, I don’t share. If Cash forced his way into my body, if he raped me, I’d feel deep down inside that I’d somehow be betraying Dante. For myself, for my lover, Mr. Restricted was not going to have me.
Hands free, I dug my fingers into Cash’s short hair and twisted. He pulled back, mouth a bloody mess. Directly in his face, I screamed as loud and as long as I could. When he winced and pulled away, I jabbed my finger into his eye socket. His howl of pain echoed in the car and I launched myself at him, using the confined space of the backseat to my advantage. Kicking, punching and gouging—my limbs were a fury of desperate movement.
Groin. Stomach. Ribs. Face. Eyes. Nose. Throat. I hit every VA I could reach and then dug deeper within myself with one goal—inflict as much damage as humanly possible.
Cash, caught off guard, went on the offensive but spent most of his time trying to block or catch my wildly flaying fists. I used my nails to claw and rip flesh. The car pulled sharply off the road and came to a screeching halt, nearly throwing me off my target. I fought past the panic and the fear. Blood coated my skin. Everywhere I looked, I saw red.
I took the sides of his face between my hands, shoved all of my rage, terror and pain into a piercing scream, and twisted. Bone snapped and Cash went limp beneath me. I panted above him and tried to reconcile what I’d just done. I’d broken his neck. Holy shit.
The door farthest from me was ripped open and I looked up in horror at the three vampires who looked inside the car with shocked expressions on their faces.
“What the fuck?” one of them said.
My stomach lurched and I pressed a bloody hand over my mouth. One of the vampires reached in, wrapped his fingers around my arm and drew me through the blood, out of the car. I landed on my knees in front of the trio of men. The churning in my belly had my throat convulsing and the second I opened my mouth, I vomited all over a pair of expensive-looking black loafers.
Those shoes with the single scuffed toe was the last thing I saw before the world went black and I passed out.
Chapter Nine
I came to with the lingering taste of puke in my mouth and a piece of tape over my lips. The adhesive gag pulled my cheeks and sealed my mouth closed. Around me, chains rattled. Someone growled, and the low vibrating sound was drowned out by a slurping-sucking noise. Cackling, obnoxious laughter overlaid it all.
I cracked my lids open and through my blurred vision, tried to make sense out of my surroundings. Between large concrete poles spaced every twenty feet or so, a mass of flesh writhed before me but I couldn’t make sense out of the scene.
Lethargy sucked me under as if I’d taken too many pills. Had I been drugged? My shoulders ached, yet I couldn’t feel my arms or my hands. I felt almost…weightless. I shook my head, concentrated. The mass of flesh parted and left me with a clear view.
Horror filled me.
Dante, who wore only his slacks, pulled against steel manacles wrapped around his right ankle and wrist. Crisscrossing three-foot chains bound him to a concrete post and rattled with his every move. Two dozen vampires, their red eyes gleaming with hunger, crawled over him like a colony of ants. Fangs sank into flesh, nails clawed at skin. Chest, neck, arms and legs—the partially dressed scavengers fought each other to find somewhere to graze.
“Get the fuck off me.” Canine teeth bared in a snarl, Dante raged, ripping them off one a time with his free arm. For every one he peeled off, two more vampires moved into place. I tried to call out to him, to make some sort of noise but whatever tape kept my mouth closed also trapped my words inside.
“Playtime boys, sleeping beauty is finally awake,” someone said and stepped in front of me, blocking Dante and his harem of feeders from my view completely.
Bright-blue eyes and sandy-blond hair, a vampire who stood at least six-foot three stroked a cold finger down my cheek. I pulled away and the motion sent me swinging. I glanced up, found my numb arms wrapped together with a thick piece of rope that hung from a metal beam, one of many, that made up the warehouse ceiling.
Otherness surrounded me, closed in and made my skin itch as another bloodsucker came up behind me. A cold hand gripped my hip and stopped my swaying.
The person behind me I couldn’t see pushed the hair off my shoulders and trailed a nose down the back of my neck. I whimpered, tried to move away. All my confidence from defending myself from Cash vanished.
Jesus. Cash. Where was he? I drew my gaze wildly around the steel and concrete room. Wooden crates lined the walls and piled high, almost reaching the dark, grimy windows that neared the ceiling. Too many obstacles, not enough light. I knew I hadn’t killed him. Eventually, depending on his age and strength, he’d heal from a broken neck.
A third vampire, red hair and a hooked nose, materialized beside me to cup my other hip. He slid his hand around and cupped my ass in his palm.
I screamed behind the tape sealing my mouth shut and tried to wiggle away from the ice-cold roaming hands. My stomach, upset from vomiting earlier, clenched.
The male behind me whispered into my ear and I tried like hell to pull away from him. “You’re a sweet piece of ass, I can see why Cash was so obsessed with you.”
“Lucky for us,” the blond said. “You took out our sire, damaged the bond enough for us to stake him. Not sure you did yourself a favor there, sweetheart. He would have kept you all to himself.”
The redhead nodded and kneaded my ass cheek, his fingers digging into flesh. He flashed his fangs at me and rubbed the hard length of his erection against my thigh. He looked to the blond who trailed a finger from my throat to the skin between my breasts.
“Now we get to share. I get her ass—you two can take turns with her pussy.”
The three of them snickered. “I bet she’s never been fucked in the ass before. I love virgins, how they squeal and scream for it.”
I shook my head from side to side, tried to kick out but found my energy wasted when hard, branding hands closed around my legs and ripped them apart. My heart accelerated. Fingers danced up my thigh, under my dress and my belly tightened into a hard rock. Tears pooled in my eyes, warm drops of moisture rolled down my cheeks. The vampires crowding around me laughed.
“We’ll never be able to get to her sweet spot like this, cut her down, James. Last person who comes gets to turn her,” one of the vampires said.
“Touch her and I swear to god, I’ll rip you limb from limb with my teeth.” Dante snarled. Chains rattled.
“Shut the fuck up, shifter, and enjoy the show!” James said as he withdrew a blade from his pocket and sawed through the rope above my head.
I closed my eyes and tried to block everything out. Had they set this up so he’d be forced to watch while they raped me? Over my dead body. I was a Grey. A hunter at heart. I’d incapacitated a master vampire.
The second the frayed rope broke, the blond caught me around the waist and held me against the solid evidence of his arousal.
With a grin, he leaned forward and scraped his tongue over my cheek. I struggled against him, the wet trail his saliva left on my flesh evaporating in the wood-scented air. The ground beneath me was dusty and hard. The vampires scrambling for their belt buckles were eager and sloppy.
James dropped his knife to the ground, the blade hitting the stone floor with a spark of light. Across the warehouse I met Dante’s burning, helpless gaze. He pulled against his chains, dark-red blood welling and then immediately vanishing under the hungry mouths of the vampires who feasted on him. Dante roared, the echo of his distress a knife in my stomach.
Knife. James. He’d dropped it.
Lips moved over my skin, tongues flicked out and tasted flesh. One of my attackers forced my kicking legs open and reached for my panties. Teeth nipped. I turned my head, shutting out the vile sensations and focused on the shiny black hilt of a weapon they’d left in my reach. I shifted my bound wrists through the layer of sawdust and grabbed hold of the knife.
&nb
sp; Another roar echoed throughout the warehouse and the energy in the room shifted. The otherness crawling over my skin quadrupled.
The three vampires crawling over me looked up, across the room.
A gigantic lion gazed at us with intelligent rage filled tawny eyes. Dante was absolutely breathtaking in feline form. His mane was thick and full, melting from a dark yellow to an almost blackish-orange on top. Slack-jawed, my eyes widened as he made quick work of the remaining feral vampires who’d been feeding off him. When he finished he padded through the cloud of ash on paws the size of my head.
Jesus, he must have been at least four feet tall at his shoulders. Feline muscles bunched and coiled with every graceful step he took. Blood dripped from various spots on his back and hindquarters, as if the wounds in human form had carried over to the animal living inside him.
Using the distraction to my advantage, I struck. I readjusted my sweaty hands on the blade’s hilt and slammed the knife through James’ back through to his heart. Ash erupted and the two remaining vampires, pants undone and limp cocks exposed, scrambled away from me.
Dante let out another roar, this one long and loud, exposing his sharp canines. His tail swished back and forth in an agitated rhythm.
“Shoulda killed him when he was chained up.” The sandy-haired vampire tucked himself into his pants and cracked his knuckles. He turned and smiled at his friend. “Never met pussy I couldn’t tame. I got this, you get the knife from the bitch.”
I got myself up off the floor, slipping through the loose shaved wood and sprinted for a tall stack of crates. From the corner of my eye I saw Dante lunge and catch the vampire rushing at him by the neck. His jaw snapped shut. Bone crunched as he shook his head from side to side. Blood sprayed, churned my already roiling stomach. A second later, Dante’s prey vanished into a cloud of ash. He curled his upper lip, tongue scraping the blood dripping around his mouth and padded across the dusty, trash-strewn floor. The remaining vampire looked at Dante, then at me.
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