“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“Shut up, human,” Jezabel said.
“She doesn’t smell right,” Leah noted. Her poreless model’s nose twitched as she leaned in toward me.
“Sorry,” I said. “Getting kidnapped may have made me sweat past my deodorant’s capabilities.”
“No,” she said, nose still twitching. “Why does she smell like a vampire?”
Oh no. Why do I smell like a vampire?
Bennigan turned in his seat, face a mask of annoyance. “You’re losing your touch, Leah. Lucian never turned her.” A slow, lecherous grin spread on Bennigan’s face. “But we’ll fix that, won’t we, darling?” He reached for my face and I bit his finger before he could touch my cheek.
He pulled his hand back, eyes curious. He looked like he was trying to solve a mystery instead of being mad that I’d bit him. I noticed both women and the man were looking strangely at me too, but I didn’t think it was just because I’d tried to fight back.
Within moments, the car was stopped outside a rusty blue shipping container. Jezabel pulled me out, hugging me tight against her muscular body as she yanked me from the car. Just for the sake of being difficult, I flailed around a little to make her life more difficult. I even let out a few ear-piercing shrieks. All it earned me was a knee in the back of the ribs, which stopped my resistance.
They took me inside the container and sat me in a chair, which they tied me to.
“Really?” I asked. “Tying me to a chair? You’re sure you guys can’t just tell me the plan at this point? Is it going to even make a difference if I know?”
The old mysterious man made a dismissive sound between a snort and a laugh. “You are the method of our revenge, little human. That’s all you need to know. Now be a good girl and stay put until we need you.”
They yanked the heavy metal doors of the container closed and left me in complete darkness.
It took about one minute of total darkness to reconsider my thought from before about hoping Lucian wouldn’t come for me.
Maybe part of me hoped he would find some way to come, as long as it didn’t involve getting himself hurt or killed. If nothing else, I wanted a chance to say goodbye—the chance his stubborn ass had robbed me of when he decided to slip out of my life in the middle of the night.
Come on, Lucian. Come save me. Just don’t do anything crazy like showing up by yourself.
34
Lucian
There was no time to wait for the others.
I could feel Cara through the bond, and I could sense how afraid she was. She needed me, and I needed to do whatever I could to save her now. Not later.
I wished I hadn’t spent all day letting the sunlight sap my strength. Even after close to an hour of starlight, I still felt weak and drained.
I managed to borrow a car from a screaming woman shortly after Bennigan drove off with Cara. I’d told her I would probably bring it back, but she’d still screamed and sprayed me with some sort of liquid that had smelled horrible.
I knew I was close when I arrived at a sort of shipping yard. There were huge rectangular boxes in various colors stacked across the huge concrete space. I couldn’t see any sign of activity, but my sense of Cara’s location was clear as day.
The phone she’d given me vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it free, then answered.
“Who is this?”
Bennigan’s laugh came from the other side. “I didn’t quite believe they’d taught you how to use a cell phone. I guess it’s true.”
“Give her to me now and I’ll consider showing you mercy.”
“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather let me handle her? She seems too feisty for you, Lucian.”
I gripped the phone tighter at the thought of him going anywhere near Cara. My Cara. “If you touch her…”
Bennigan laughed. “I plan to. And once I’ve had a little time, she’ll be begging to touch me. Do you know how video texts work? I’ll make sure to send you one.”
“Give her back and I’ll consider letting you live.”
“No. I think I’d rather let you watch me take the human for myself. She was stubborn, but my charm worked on her just like all the others. She has been begging me to let her at my cock, and I think if you keep irritating me, I may give her what she wants soon.”
I clenched my teeth. I knew he was lying—just trying to push my buttons. Maybe it was because I knew the bond should’ve protected Cara from the worst of his abilities. But Bennigan was strong enough to charm other vampires, which meant she wouldn’t be immune forever. “What do you want from me?”
“Nothing, Lucian. That’s the best part. There is absolutely nothing you can offer me. This isn’t a negotiation. I just want to see your misery. I want you to feel a fraction of what I felt when you took Emily away from me.”
“Emily took herself away from you when she—”
“Don’t speak her name,” he hissed.
I gripped the phone until I could feel the fragile machinery threatening to break between my fingers. “Give me Cara. This is your last chance.”
“Or what? You’ll make me? Please, Lucian. Please try. I would love nothing more than being able to look the others in the face and telling them you gave me no choice. That the only thing I could do was remove your pretty little head from your body.”
I bared my teeth, even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “You can try.” I turned off the call.
I walked forward, trying to head toward the source of the pull in my chest. Toward Cara.
I’d left her on her own, and now she was paying for my mistake. I’d told myself she would be better without me in her life, but I’d been a fool to think I could keep her safe from a distance. Hell, I’d been a fool to think I could handle the constant ache of being away from her, with or without the bond. It had only taken minutes before I’d longed to see her again.
I knew there was no future for us, but I was going to get her back. I’d keep her safe. And this time, I’d take as much time as I could possibly get with her. I’d let her decide when it was time to part ways, because I knew I couldn’t willingly walk away from her again.
I’m coming, Cara.
35
Cara
I couldn’t see a thing.
The darkness seemed to make the first sound of struggle feel amplified. There was grunting, shouting, the scuffing of feet, then several gunshots.
My heart was pounding as I imagined what was coming for me. I pictured the old man with the dead eyes deciding he wanted to torture me for fun, or Bennigan letting Jezabel have me to do with as she pleased.
There was shouting, muffled thuds like someone getting punched.
Laughter.
Scraping like feet being dragged across gravel that was getting closer.
Then the doors of the container were yanked open. Bennigan and Jezabel were dragging Lucian between them. He was covered in blood and I could see at least three obvious bullet wounds.
Lucian.
Despite what should have been mortal wounds, the man actually shot me a roguish grin as they dragged him and a chair to sit beside me.
“Looks like he was dumber than I anticipated.” Bennigan said to me with a crooked grin. “Came alone and unarmed.”
“You should see the other guys,” Lucian muttered.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Coming for you.”
“Yeah,” I hissed. “You clearly accomplished that. Did you think it might be a good idea to figure out how you were going to leave with me, too?”
“Didn’t get that far,” he admitted.
“We’ll be back shortly,” Bennigan said. “There’s one small matter to tend to before I can have my fun with you two.”
I had a second to see Lucian’s pale, blood-streaked skin glimmer in the moonlight just before they closed the doors again and left us in darkness.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d come,” I admitted. It was probably stupid and definitely sentime
ntal, but I felt like I could face whatever was coming for us now that we were together. I hated that I was selfish enough to be glad he was here with me, but I was.
“I shouldn’t have left in the first place,” Lucian said.
“Yeah. I had an entire angry speech planned to give you about that. But I’ll save it for when we get out of here.”
“You have a plan for that?”
“No,” I said. “I was hoping you did and just weren’t going to say it in front of them.”
He lowered his voice. “I did text Alaric, Vlad, and Seraphina. But the last time I saw them, they were in a gunfight on the rooftop outside Anya’s.”
“How would they even find us?”
“Vlad may not look it, but he’s immensely powerful. He could follow our scent if he was properly motivated.”
“Properly motivated? He needs more motivation than knowing we’re both going to get chopped up by maniacs?”
“I may have promised I’d let him re-open his torture room if he got us out of this. But I didn’t say for how long.”
I stared into the darkness. “He really tortures people?”
“He doesn’t usually kill them,” Lucian said with a touch of uncertainty.
“We’ll talk about that later. If there is a later.”
“Do I want to know why I’m sensing the bond again?” Lucian asked after a few seconds of silence.
“About that… I may have taken some drastic measures when you disappeared. Like injecting some of those little Lucios back into my blood.”
I could feel his disapproval radiating through the darkness. “That was reckless.”
“And you left me without even saying goodbye.”
Another pause. “That was a mistake I won’t repeat.”
“No,” I said. “You won’t. Also,” I added with a little less confidence. “Leah said I smelled like a vampire. What does that mean, exactly?”
I heard Lucian sniff deeply. He didn’t speak right away. “Did you alter the blood you injected into yourself?”
“Sort of. I mean, I spun it down and extracted pretty much just the little vampire balls. But they kept dying and I figured out the only way to keep them alive and reproducing was to inject new blood into the sample.”
“You mean you vampirized blood and then injected it into yourself.”
I narrowed my eyes, turning that concept over. “You know, when you phrase it like that, it makes it sound like the consequences would be super obvious. But it didn’t feel that way at the time.”
“Cara…”
My stomach was doing all sorts of summersaults. Little by little, the glowing neon signs that I had inadvertently turned myself into some sort of vampire were becoming impossible to ignore. “I thought you said it would have to be you feeding on my blood to seal the bond? I just used random samples of blood.”
“That shouldn’t have caused you to turn, no,” he said. “A bonded human could drink as much blood as they wanted with no consequence.”
“Maybe it’s different when it’s all done in test tubes? I also added a few random chemicals here and there to try to help keep the Lucios from dying so quickly.”
“You are a very determined woman, aren’t you?” he asked. I wasn’t sure if he was impressed, annoyed, scared, or all three.
“You didn’t even let me say goodbye.”
“And that was a grave mistake. So was underestimating your determination to make me regret it.”
I grinned in the darkness. “Well, at least if we die gruesome deaths, we learned a little about each other in the process. But seriously, what are we going to do? Those psychopaths want to torture us, and now you’re trapped in here with me.”
“I’m not trapped,” Lucian said. “I can get out of these chains.”
“With super strength?” I asked.
“No. Vlad isn’t the only one who can transform himself.”
I waited. “You were serious about the bat thing?”
“Yes. But if you speak of this, I will deny it to anyone.”
I smiled. “Why, is it like a taboo to be able to turn into a bat in the vampire world?”
“Because the less my enemies know about what I can do, the more likely I am to catch them by surprise. Also, because my bat form is very small, but that has no bearing on the size of my manhood, despite some silly sayings among my kind. Just a moment.”
For a few seconds, I heard nothing. Then I felt a subtle shockwave in the air that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. The sound of chains clinking to the ground followed, along with a high-pitched chirp. Then I heard two heavy feet land on the ground beside me, shaking the container.
“Uh,” I said, still not sure I trusted the story my ears had just told me. “Are you still bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds?”
“Yes,” Lucian said. “I’m also completely naked. Please try not to stare when we open the doors.”
I laughed. “Wait, if you turn into a small bat, what happens to your clothes? Shouldn’t they be on the ground? And why did you make a bat noise when you turned? Did you try to say something?”
“I didn’t make the rules, Cara. They just vanish. It’s terribly inconvenient. And yes, I said ‘fuck,’ because the transformation hurts.”
Lucian had just got me free of my chains when there was a deep screech from above us. Gunshots rang out along with the sound of bullets pinging off heavy metal containers. Raised voices shouted to look up or to get down. Someone started shooting and little circular holes of light burst through the wall of our container. Lucian covered me with his body, which I was confusingly aroused to find was naked. He crouched down, wrapping his arms around me.
“If that’s you, Alaric,” Lucian shouted, trying to be heard over the chaos outside. “You’re about to shoot the people you’re trying to save.”
“Oh,” Alaric called from outside the container. He yanked the doors open. “My fault. Was trying to shoot the bad guys.”
The sound of screams and gunshots was still raging in the distance, but Alaric was staring at us with his head tilted to the side. “Uh,” he said. “You didn’t think it would make more sense to get her out of here before you got naked? Where are your clothes, anyway?”
“I didn’t bring them,” Lucian said curtly. He stood, taking my hand and leading me at his side.
I tried to be a gentlewoman and control my eyes, but I figured there was a fifty percent chance I was going to get killed by a stray bullet any minute. So I stole several girthy glances at Lucian, who was completely pulling off the naked with confidence thing. I’d already confirmed as much when I put it in my mouth, but I was reminded that he definitely wasn’t lying. If vampires thought a small bat form meant a small penis, they clearly hadn’t seen Lucian.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered.
There was an ear-piercing, heavily accented screech in the distance. The sound was followed by a few gunshots, then exclamations about how hairy and naked whatever they were apparently shooting at was.
“We run,” Lucian said.
I followed after him and Alaric, who were hunched over and rushing through the crates. Lucian ended up scooping me in his arms and carrying me with him. Over his shoulder, I saw lightning-like flashes of light as more gunshots rang out and pinged off the containers. There was an occasional shout, sometimes a thump, and always more gunshots.
“How many people came with you?” I asked Alaric. “it sounds like a warzone over there.”
“Just Vlad,” Alaric said. “Seraphina was busy.”
“Vlad is by himself? There were four of the bad guys!” I hissed.
“Four?” Lucian asked. “Bennigan, Jezabel, Leah, and who else?”
“Some old guy with dead eyes. He seemed like he was the boss of Bennigan or something.”
Alaric and Lucian shared a look as we made our way past the perimeter of the shipping yard.
“What?” I asked, jumping into the car Lucian must’ve driven and buckling myself in the bac
kseat. “What does that look mean?”
“Nothing,” Lucian said.
“Shouldn’t you two get guns and go back in a blaze of glory to save Vlad, or something?”
Alaric got in the passenger seat and looked back at me while Lucian turned the engine over and started to drive. “You’ve got to understand this whole gunfighting thing for vampires doesn’t carry the same weight it would for a human. We shoot each other, we bleed a little, it hurts, boo hoo. It’s really more about the emotional message.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You shoot each other with guns to send emotional messages?”
Alaric nodded. “Exactly. It’s pretty brutal work to actually kill one of us. Not something you’re likely to do by accident. So the whole gun part is like… Foreplay.”
“I see,” I said slowly. “I don’t think I understand, but I see.”
“Hey,” Alaric said, looking over toward Lucian. “Were you planning to just keep being naked, or did you want me to see if there’s something in here we can use to cover your cock with? I feel like it’s trying to make eye contact with me and I’m being rude by not returning the favor.”
“If you’re having trouble keeping your eyes off it, it’s not my problem,” Lucian said dryly.
Alaric looked at me. “You know, that’s the first time I’ve caught Lucian completely nude with someone before. He must really like you.”
“Alaric,” Lucian said. “As much as I appreciate the daring rescue, I need you to stop talking.”
I turned to look behind the car toward the docks. I could still see brief flashes of light illuminating the containers sporadically. I could hear what now sounded like pops from distant fireworks. And…
I squinted.
I thought I saw a huge black shape rise above the containers and swoop back down again. I shook my head. Nope. Did not just see that.
Except the only thing I had to look at when I peeled my eyes from the gunfight was Lucian as he sat completely naked in the driver’s seat of the car. The only slight mercy was that the center console was keeping me from having a full view of everything. But I could see enough to learn that my body clearly didn’t care if it was in danger of being torn to shreds—hot naked guy was still hot naked guy, and all the proper internal alarms and procedures had been activated.
Kiss Kiss Fang Fang: A Sucky Vampire Romantic Comedy Page 18
