by Abby Blake
Skye rolled in his arms, wriggling closer as she continued to sleep. Absently he ran his hand over her hair, soothing her as he continued his conversation with Thomas.
“Tomorrow,” Thomas said with a slightly amused smile as he glanced at what Benjamin was doing with his hand, “Alex and I are planning to talk to some of the locals. There are quite a few businesses in town owned by paranormals. If the women’s attackers have money they’ll probably be staying in one of the motels. Maybe one of the locals took notice.” He shrugged. At this point in their mission they inevitably hit a few dead ends. “If not, we’ll check into some of the more common vamp hidey-holes in the afternoon.” Thomas’s tone of voice suggested he wasn’t looking forward to going wandering through the underground sewers. With his keen sense of smell it was bound to be unpleasant, but Benjamin knew his team well enough to know that they would all do what needed to be done when it needed to be done.
In years gone by Benjamin would have suggested his friend plan to get some sleep also, but experience had taught him that when Thomas felt this strongly about a case that he should be left to do his job.
“What about Skye?” Thomas asked with an expression Benjamin couldn’t really classify. “Should we consider you and Samuel off the mission for the moment?”
“Maybe,” Benjamin said as Samuel stepped through the door adjoining the two hotel rooms. “We can’t leave her unprotected. If her attackers think she can identify them, she could be in even more danger.” Samuel nodded in agreement. It was most likely that he’d been listening to the conversation from the other room anyway. Vampire hearing might not be as good as a werewolf’s, but it was still way better than when they’d been human.
“And the Ruling Body would be all over us if we left a fledgling to her own devices. There’s no telling what she might do if she wakes alone,” Samuel added.
Benjamin hadn’t even thought of that. For at least the next couple of days Skye’s actions were likely to be ruled by instinct rather than her adult mind. It was probably the main reason why the Ruling Body had chosen to put a maker’s natural inclination to protect a fledgling vampire into their written laws. Protecting the secret of the paranormal community’s existence was essentially the reason they had a Ruling Body in the first place. Fledgling vampires could wreak all sorts of havoc if left to their own devices, and they certainly wouldn’t be aware of how their actions affected the rest of the paranormal community. Human beings as a whole tended to react poorly to things they didn’t understand and if history had taught Benjamin anything, it was that very few humans could be trusted to react calmly and rationally upon discovering that creatures supposedly only found in nightmares actually existed.
There was a good chance that Skye wasn’t going to take the news of her change very well either.
Thomas glanced at Samuel and then back at Benjamin. “I’m going to go bunk in with Alex. It’ll make it easier for you two to care for Skye if you’re sharing the same room.”
Benjamin nodded his thanks, and within minutes Thomas had collected his stuff and moved into the adjoining room. Samuel sat down in the chair Thomas had vacated and, as if he couldn’t help himself, leaned over and ran his fingers through the silky strands of Skye’s long, straight, blonde hair.
“I’ve drafted a report for Higgins, I’m not quite sure how to phrase ‘Oh and we made a vampire,’ so I sort of left it out.”
“It’s probably not something the Ruling Body needs to know. What we do on our own time is our business. If Skye is able to identify her attackers we’ll explain her transformation then.”
Samuel sat back, letting Skye’s hair fall onto the bed. “I didn’t expect the attraction to be so strong,” he said quietly.
“I know what you mean,” Benjamin said as he tried to move so that his hard cock wasn’t pressed against Skye’s hip.
“Do you think it was like this for our maker?”
Benjamin smiled at the man who’d once been his cousin. As humans they’d grown up together, gone to school together, fought in war together, and then died together. They’d been reborn as vampires when a man had found them in the middle of a bloody battlefield, their lives ebbing away so very slowly that Benjamin remembered most of the thoughts that had gone through his mind that day.
“It might explain Elijah’s rush to leave us behind.” In fact it explained a lot of things that had happened back then. Despite their sire’s seemingly callous need to teach them quickly and send them on their way, they had both sensed that Elijah was a loving and generous man. He’d been devastated as he’d weaved his way through the battlefield seeking survivors. When he’d found them, he’d risked his own life by turning two humans at once. If they’d been as close to death as Skye had, they would certainly have killed him with their need for vampire blood.
“Makes me kind of glad that Skye was the first human we changed. I think I’d probably freak out if I felt this sort of attraction for a male fledgling.”
“Me, too,” Benjamin said, watching his friend closely. “But the one thing Elijah proved is that we don’t have to follow through on it. He walked away. Once Skye is capable of taking care of herself we should be able to walk away, too.”
A flash of anger filled Samuel’s face, but it was gone almost immediately. He seemed to hesitate, as if he were going to say something else, but then he nodded once and sat back in the chair.
* * * *
Samuel woke suddenly, his hearing quickly zeroing in on the sound that had roused him. The sun was due to rise in the next few hours. Thanks to his advanced age he no longer felt the physical drain and need for sleep, but their beautiful fledgling would fall into a deep slumber as soon as the first rays lightened the sky on the horizon.
But for the moment she whimpered, caught inside a nightmare she couldn’t wake from.
Benjamin had reluctantly dragged himself out of bed a few hours ago and gone to confer with the rest of PUP Squad Alpha. Samuel had made the somewhat sensible decision to watch over Skye from the chair beside the bed—despite the nearly overwhelming urge to wrap himself around the beautiful blonde and hold on tight.
He leaned over and gently shook her. “Skye, wake up, sweetheart.”
She partially opened her eyes, but the look of panic that crossed her features seemed to be from something only she could see. “No!” she screamed almost silently.
“Skye,” Samuel said a little more forcefully. Her eyes flew open, but this time she seemed to recognize him and scrambled into his embrace instead.
Shocked by the unexpected move, Samuel almost pushed her away as thoughts of his own self-preservation surfaced. Despite his attraction to her, it was best for all involved if he and Benjamin kept a professional and emotional distance. She was witness to a vicious murder. Nothing more.
But the internal pep talk did nothing to stop his arms from closing around her and holding her tight. Completely naked, she snuggled against him, her fear already dissipating as she once again fell asleep. He held her close as he tried to rationalize his feelings, but it was several long minutes before he realized that she’d instinctively trusted him. Whatever else was going on inside her mind, Skye felt a connection to him, just as he felt one to her.
Chapter Three
Skye woke lying in the embrace of a stranger.
No, not a stranger. Not really. But rather someone she knew but hadn’t really met.
Not that any of that made a lick of sense.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” the man said as she nuzzled her face against his neck. She had an insane urge to lick him all over. Considering all the hard muscles he seemed to own, that probably wasn’t so surprising, but it was the fact that she couldn’t remember where they met or how she ended up sleeping in his arms that stopped her from following through.
“Good morning,” she mumbled, trying to look around the room they were in. “Where are we?”
“The motel on the corner of Main and Ocean Streets.”
“Oh,”
she said, trying to hide her embarrassment. She supposed it could be worse. If she was going to tumble into bed with a complete stranger at least she’d picked one with money enough for a decent room. Although sex with a stranger sure wasn’t her usual style.
Movement on the bed behind her had the hair on the back of her neck standing up in fear, and a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that there was indeed a man lying on the mattress. Hell, did she have sex with two strangers last night?
“Um…” She wasn’t a big drinker, so she couldn’t quite fathom how she’d gotten here. The worst-case scenario slipped into her head, but it didn’t seem wise to accuse two very large men of drugging her until she had some idea of how she would get out of here. The guy on the bed seemed to read her predicament because he rolled to his feet, pulled on a pair of jeans, and dragged a seat closer to where she sat on the other guy’s lap.
“I’m Benjamin,” he said. “The guy holding you is Samuel. Do you remember anything that happened?”
She shook her head.
“You were attacked in the alley behind the nightclub on the beach.”
“I was?” It was probably very foolish, but something inside her urged her to trust these men. “Did I hit my head? I don’t remember anything at all.”
She’d had some crazy dreams that proved she watched way too much television, but she didn’t have any memory of leaving the club. Why would she even go into the back alley? Her sister had arranged to meet her inside, and Skye distinctly remembered going in the front door.
“Jennifer,” she said quickly, levering herself off the man’s lap in search of a phone. “What time is it? Knowing my sister she’s probably filed a missing person’s report by now.”
“Skye, we’ll call your sister in a little while, but first we need to explain what happened to you.”
She held up her hands in a physical effort to halt his words. “Look, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather live in blissful ignorance. I don’t remember what happened, and quite frankly, judging by your serious faces, I’d rather not know. I have weird enough dreams as it is without adding real-life experiences into the mix.” Both men looked annoyed at her announcement, but it was the fact that they seemed to be trying very hard to keep their eyes on her face that finally tipped her into noticing she was standing in front of them naked. With a squeak of embarrassment she snatched the sheet off Samuel’s knees and wrapped it around herself. “What happened to my clothes?”
“They were damaged beyond repair so we threw them out.”
She paced back and forth as she tried to comprehend what was going on but somehow still retain the ignorance that she suspected was keeping her sane. Something inside warned her that she really, really didn’t want to remember anything about last night.
“So if I can just call my sister, she can…um…bring me some clothes and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Skye,” Benjamin said with very sincere-sounding sympathy in his voice, “I know it would be much easier to forget everything that happened, but you’re our only living witness to a young woman’s murder. And there are things that we need to explain about what happened after you were attacked.”
Oh crap. If he was about to tell her that the three of them all had wild monkey sex afterward, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear that either.
“Look, it’s fine. I’m on the pill. Whatever happened I’m sure we all, you know, enjoyed it, so there’s no need to go through a…um…blow-by-blow description.” She winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth—the pun truly had not been intended—but she was too embarrassed to look over and see their faces.
But then Benjamin was somehow standing in front of her, even though she hadn’t actually noticed him move.
“We didn’t have sex, baby girl,” he said even though he touched her face with the familiarity of a lover. “You were dying when we found you, so we did the one thing we knew to save you.”
“Dying?” she asked in disbelief. If she’d been dying, why wasn’t she in a hospital?
“Sweetheart,” Samuel said as he, too, moved to stand in front of her, “if there had been any other choice, we wouldn’t have done it.”
“Done what?” she asked suspiciously as flashes of memory played behind her eyes. Fear gripped her as the face of a frightened woman floated through her mind.
“They’d drained you, Skye. We had no choice but to change you into a vampire.”
Vampire? She wanted to laugh hysterically, but in her heart she knew their words were true. Even now the memories she’d tried to deny only minutes earlier rose up to suffocate her.
“The woman with red hair?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Samuel said as he pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, overwhelmed by everything that had happened in that dark alley. When her attackers—she’d known even then that they’d been vampires who’d bitten her—had dropped her between the trash cans, she’d known she would die.
But then the incongruity of the situation finally hit her.
“Vampires tried to kill me, and then you guys saved me by turning me into a vampire? Are you vampires, too?”
With her ear pressed against Samuel’s chest she could hear the man’s heart beating. How could he be a vampire? Weren’t vampires considered the undead? But her disbelief was quickly quelled by Benjamin’s reply.
“Yes, baby girl, we’re vampires.” He reached over and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Too late she realized it was so he could see her face more clearly. “And since we made you, we’re responsible for teaching you how to survive your new life.”
“So you’re going to teach me how to…what? Kill humans?”
Benjamin ran a hand down his face in obvious agitation. “We don’t kill humans to feed. It’s not necessary. Even before blood banks it wasn’t necessary to kill humans to survive.”
“Sweetheart,” Samuel said as he shuffled her back toward the bed, “we know it’s a lot to take in when you’re still so tired, but we really need your help to track down your attackers. Do you remember anything at all about last night?”
She shook her head, trying to dislodge the images beating through her brain. She didn’t want to remember, but the fear on the woman’s face before she’d died lodged front and center in her memory, and Skye knew she was being a coward. She was safe now. How she knew that she wasn’t quite sure—these men were strangers, mostly—but her heart told her they would lay their own lives down in an effort to protect her.
“The man…the vampire who killed her…he wasn’t very tall. His hair was blond and sort of scraggly…dirty looking.”
“How many vampires were there?”
“Th–Three.” She swallowed heavily as memories of staring at the night sky, as the two vampires drained her of blood, crowded her brain.
“Do you remember what the other two looked like?” Samuel asked as he guided her onto the mattress and helped her to lie down. He lay down behind her, holding her close as tears rolled down her cheeks. Benjamin sat in front of her, the concern on his face very obvious as she haltingly described the two men who’d taken her out of the club against her will.
“H–How did they make me do that?”
“It’s a skill all vampires have. We can compel humans, but it’s something we try to avoid. It can be very frightening for the human.” She nodded in agreement. It had been beyond terrifying to not have any control over her own actions. Samuel rubbed a thumb over her stomach where his hand rested, the gentle touch quite comforting.
“Are you hungry?” Benjamin asked. She gave him a watery smile. It was obvious he didn’t want to frighten her by dredging up too many memories. Unfortunately, the entire experience was replaying in her brain. She hoped that maybe if she told them everything, it would help lessen the memory’s impact.
By the time she was finished talking, her voice was hoarse, her eyes felt swollen and raw, and her chest ached with grief, but a very s
mall part of her knew it was the first step to reclaiming her life.
“Thank you, Skye,” Benjamin said as he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’re an amazing young woman.” He glanced at the interconnecting door, and she finally noticed two more men standing just outside the room. The new faces probably should have frightened her, but she was too exhausted to feel much of anything.
One of the men stepped into the room, reached into the small fridge, and lifted out what seemed to be a bag of blood. She shuddered in revulsion as he poured some into a coffee mug and brought it over to her.
Her mouth watered at the appealing smell, but her brain clung to fears she’d learned while working in the medical industry. Samuel reached over and took the cup when Skye refused to reach for it. She wanted to back away from the mug full of biohazard waste, but with Samuel behind her she had nowhere to go.
The man who’d stayed in the doorway smiled kindly at her reaction. “You’ll get used to it. I don’t know all that much about newly made vampires but I do know you need blood to survive.”
Skye nodded even though the thought of drinking blood made her stomach twist in an anxious knot. “Are you…”
She didn’t manage to get the whole sentence out, but it was obvious by the man’s next words that he’d known what she was going to ask. “Nope, Alex and I—I’m Thomas, by the way—aren’t vampires. I’m a werewolf.” He glanced at the man he’d identified as Alex, gave a mischievous sort of grin, and added, “Alex is something else.”
“Oh,” she said, not really ready for any more surprises. She’d gone from blissful ignorance to suddenly learning that vampires and werewolves really did exist. She didn’t even want to know what “something else” meant.
Again Thomas seemed to understand, because he glanced at Benjamin and Samuel, nodded to Alex, and then the two men left the room.
“You need to drink this, sweetheart,” Samuel said as he held the cup closer to her face.
