by Eros, Marata
Even when Cole blasted through the window I didn't stir. It couldn't be him... he was, I couldn't think where he was, glass spraying in a brittle rain all around the me.
“Rachel!” he roared, coming at me.
I pointed to Erik thinking thickly that he needed to have his ass taken care of. Forget me for the moment. Cole turned to where I pointed and in a spinning leap he was on Erik who mewled for mercy underneath him.
Too late.
Cole plunged his fangs into his large throat and tore out his esophagus. I felt my head go light and threw it between my knees. It spun when I closed my eyes, a vision of Erik's breathing tube like a grotesque worm on the tile, his vile blood spilling everywhere.
Then Cole was before me, gently lifting my face to meet his. The first words out of his mouth were, “Has he had you?”
I began to cry and he shook me gently. “Has he?” he asked softly, his eyes belying the tenderness of his voice.
I shook my head. He'd been very close to having me, I thought dismally, but by some stroke of luck they hadn't. Probably because Zach was good. Somehow, he was Vampire but he was a good vampire.
I began to laugh and Cole looked at me, puzzled. I realized that getting hysterical was not good.
Didn't matter, I couldn't stop laughing then the laughter turned to sobs. It wasn't until the other rogue filled the doorway and I met Zach's eyes that I stopped crying. Cole pulled my panties up one handed, my dizziness slowing the awkward maneuver to a snail's pace.
*
Cole jerked Rachel behind him, his anger beating a staccato rhythm in his temple. His vision of Rachel half naked and her face bearing the mark of a fist made him want to kill everything in sight. He took in the human, his windpipe laying beside him and wished with a vicious lust he could have beat him with it had he still been alive.
Zach also took in the scene. Rachel had been beaten and his Intimate dispatched.
His eyes shifted to hers and he felt a remorse more profound than any he had ever known. He had tough choices to make. Not the least of which was: if he harmed Cole, without knowing more of her relationship with him, would she ever mate with him? Yet, if he did not get rid of the primary competition for her affection, all was lost.
Zach smiled coolly at Cole. “I see thanks are in order, Reaper.”
Cole met his eyes, Rachel a trembling presence behind him. “I thought that you would take better care of a Druid of this purity,” Cole responded. Rachel saw Zach's eyes flinch. “Yet, here she was, ready to be savaged by a human. Common livestock,” he enunciated with derision, his palm indicating Erik.
Zach's eyes narrowed. “I was negligent. Leaving him to guard her when I knew there was a disobedient streak with that one.” He looked at Rachel. “I am sorry that I left you unprotected with him.”
Rachel didn't know what to think. They were a violent people, race, whatever.
It was a stalemate. She knew that Cole would fight for her. But as she looked at Zach, the stern lines of his face, the determination etched there said the same.
They squared off. Cole moving forward.
Rachel clenched her eyes together, the wind from the broken window chilling her skin into a riot of gooseflesh.
A rogue rushed into the room, causing both vampires to swivel into a defensive crouch toward him.
“Captain!” Zach straightened, focusing one eye on the newcomer and one on Cole.
Cole was honorable, he would not attack another vampire unawares.
“What?” His eyes narrowed on the rogue, who shifted in nervousness but said, “There is another on the grounds.”
Cole's eyebrows shot up and, picking up Rachel as to avoid the shards of broken glass on the floor, he traveled to the window, scenting.
He would recognize that fragrance anywhere, Druid. His nostrils flared and he picked up another. A familiar scent wafted on the wind, hitting his acute network of olfactory senses. All of them ringing together, matching the signature to the vampire.
Nathan had come.
And with him, another Druid.
CHAPTER 7
Holly was cold. The mammoth creature by her side did not generate a lot of body heat and between being terrified of the next five minutes and feeling dazed because of fainting she just wanted to check out on reality. It was impossible for her to believe that just three short hours ago she and Jill had been walking back from study group. A boring thing, more of an excuse to get together and gossip about guys and the latest scandal than to get any practical work done.
She was too much of a coward to ask about Jill. She didn't know if she wanted to know. It was pretty daunting just holding her own with the male that was named Nathan. At least that's what he called himself. Then he'd told her that he'd caught the “scent” of his buddy, Cole.
Of course, Holly thought, he hadn't called him his buddy, but “comrade.” He spoke really weird. Holly couldn't put her finger on it but he sounded a little like that hot guy out of the old movie, Kate and Leopold. Her initial fear had quieted. Holly was innately practical and knew that if she wanted to get away from this freak that she'd have to bide her time. She had to admit though, when he wasn't looming over the top of her and talking about breeding all the time he had a real pull on her.
Like a magnet.
It was a little scary. She'd felt him up against her when she struggled and he was built huge. She didn't want that inside her. She wanted her first time to be with someone she loved, not some crazy guy that sucked people's blood. She felt a hysterical bubble of laughter well up inside her and recognized, on some level, she was in a state of shock.
She stood next to Nathan. He looked down at her dark head and pulled her in closer to his side for warmth.
For protection
*
Nathan stood underneath a great sweep of trees, the small Druid pressed to his side, his weapons cold comfort against his body, necessary bulges underneath his lightweight clothing.
Vampires were naturally impervious to the cold.
Looking up at the old building he saw a curtain like a gauzy flag waving out of the shattered pane, loud voices coming from inside. His sensitive hearing picked up and triangulated the position of a familiar voice.
Cole.
He would know what to do. Together, they could escape. There would be a chance with the women. He would not return to Alexander's coven. There the Druid virgin would be passed around like meat, their only motivation to impregnate her and get their coveted vampires that walked in daylight. As long as Nathan had breath in his body, he would not let that be her end.
He pressed her closer while he made his way toward the structure.
*
Cole stepped away from the window, his vision picking up Nathan with a Druid clutched under his side. She looked like a girl, not a woman. Cole frowned.
I didn't see what Cole was looking at but he turned with purpose. “Do not follow me. Leave this alone, rogue. Leave Rachel alone,” he commanded.
Zach narrowed his eyes as Cole backed us toward the open window. “I cannot,” he said softly and rushed Cole in a blur of speed.
Cole pushed himself backward with one arm pressing against me as we fell backward out the window, the cold air hitting me like a punch in the gut. He did a spin midair that made me want to throw up and landed on his feet, scooping me against him as he fell.
Zach barreled into the two of us and my body slipped out of Cole's grasp and I tumbled into the snow, my bare legs instantly soaked and freezing.
I wouldn't last long in this weather without proper clothing.
The vampires went at each other in a flurry of hands. Too fast for me to track, the meaty sounds of flesh connecting with flesh were the only noises in a forest surrounding a building gone silent except for them.
The remaining rogue poured out through the door, circling the fighting vampires cautiously.
I stood on shaky legs. My feet were screaming with pain in the cold snow, my body starting to shiver, te
eth chattering. Behind me I heard a small noise. Turning away from the fighting I saw a girl that looked about nineteen. Even in the gloom I could see we could have been sisters. She looked so much like me I gasped in surprise.
Holly looked at a tallish woman in nothing but panties, bra, and half a ripped blouse, while two huge men beat the snot out of each other behind her, blood splattering the snow like oil flung, the blackness pockmarking the whiteness.
She tried to leave Nathan and go to the other woman but he held her. Holly felt immediately connected with her. Her chest tightened uncomfortably.
I came toward the girl and the... Reaper. I could definitely tell what he was. I remembered him from the meadow.
“Nathan?” I asked. And suddenly Zach and Cole were beside me, their ragged breathing and beaten faces tense.
Nathan hissed and stepped in front of the young Druid while Cole tried to tear me away from Zach.
I found myself wanting to sleep. The beginnings of hypothermia were setting in.
Cole gave me a worried glance and picked me up where I stood.
Zach said, his mouth bloody, “The rogue will not let you take her, Reaper.”
Holly looked at the two vampires. Because that was what they were, their fangs sprung and dark, wearing the blood of each other. The one that was slightly bigger held the woman in his arms, cradling her. Her hands and feet were turning an alarming shade of blue.
Holly looked around Nathan, his big body blocking hers and met the stare of the male with silver eyes.
Something clicked inside Holly like a hammer on a gun drawn and ready to strike. It reverberated in her chest, a bell struck.
Zach looked at the small female before him, pressed up against the Reaper that claimed her as protector and felt something integral in his chest slide into place as if it had been waiting for this moment to come together. His body righted itself.
Holly moved toward him before she realized she was and Nathan roared, “No!” in a bellowing wail, rushing Zach.
Cole backed up, realizing how the tide had turned.
A true mate had been imprinted upon. It was the rogue and the new Druid. They were meant to be together.
A true mating pair. A thing of legend.
Cole would have to stop Nathan. He looked down at Rachel, her warmth perilously slipping away. She would die if he could not attend to her.
Holly ran for the man in front of her. Needing to touch him, connect to him, as if he was food and she was starving. She didn't question the instinct, but acted on it like a compulsion. Her feet propelled her forward into the dark, into the arms of a vampire.
He was the one for her.
Zach saw the girl come for him and he rushed forward to meet her even as he saw a group of vampires enter the clearing.
*
Alexander entered the clearing with his finest contingent of Reapers. They had scented the Druids to these coordinates. The very location they knew to be a rogue coven.
He saw Nathan and Cole, a rogue and the two Druids. One was Rachel. His mouth salivated as he thought of his fingers buried in her core and what he almost had within his grasp. Shoving his lust away with an effort he looked at the other breeder, who bore a startling likeness to Rachel. He compared the two. Then something strange happened. The young Druid rushed the rogue and leapt onto him, causing him to stagger back, the moonlight revealing wounds that had been inflicted by fists. He knew that damage. His eyes shifted to Cole, who was holding a shivering and comatose Rachel. His jacket was wrapped around her to conserve her body heat.
Why she was in her underthings remained a mystery. She had better not have been tried, he thought, signaling the Reapers to flank the group.
*
Cole brought Rachel in closer to his body and with one arm put a restraining palm on Nathan.
“No!” Cole yelled, straining against Nathan's charge. Nathan whipped his head around to Cole and said, “She is mine! I found her, she is not for the rogue!” His eyes were wild and pinned on Holly.
“Look with eyes not consumed by lust!” Cole shouted. “They are a true, mated pair.”
Holly slammed into Zach and got up on her tiptoes and began to kiss him, touch him. The blood on his face was inconsequential to her. She could not get close enough to him. He groaned into her mouth and wrapped her up in his arms, picking her up against him, even as his eyes took in the leader of their enemy coven.
Zach felt every protective instinct he possessed fire up and come together into a pure rage, focused at the threat at hand. He watched the Reapers spread out and surround their group.
He turned with the young Druid in his arms, assessing where his vampires were and saw that the match was even, their bodies already poised for battle.
He let the girl slide down his front and felt a loss at their parting.
Holly whimpered to the man that held her and clung to him. She knew that she shouldn't feel like she did but every fiber of her being screamed for him.
Zach stroked her hair, pressing her face against his chest, hissing at the newcomers.
His fangs dripped toxic venom onto the snow.
*
Alexander entered the deepest part of the clearing, taking in the two Reapers that appeared weary, the rogue that had been beaten and had all the protective hallmarks of a mated vampire. His eyes flicked to the girl pressed against him, mewling and whimpering in the first throes of Impression. If that rogue fucked her, she would be unable to bear offspring with another.
Worthless.
Alexander made up his mind quickly. “Take the Druids, kill the others.”
He did not need Reapers in his coven that did not follow orders. Or who took a female breeder he wished to have for himself.
Cole barely had time to lay Rachel down on the cold ground, her breathing shallow, her skin freezing in front of him before the first Reaper was on him.
A Reaper he had been paired with before in battle, against others, who now fought him as an enemy.
Nathan fought by his side, as before. Cole stayed in front of Rachel and the other Druid. Even though it was clear he could not have her.
Duty prevailed. Protect the breeders.
Zach moved Holly behind him protectively. “Stand back, little one,” he said to her, caressing her cheek with the pad of his thumb. She wrapped a small hand in the back of his shirt and clung to him. He turned and removed her hand. “I cannot protect you while we are under siege.”
“Look out!” Holly screamed and Zach ducked as the swipe of a hand ending in talons narrowly missed where his head had been. He turned and launched himself at the Reaper, his own talons punching out of fingertips that had lengthened to accommodate them.
Holly got low to the ground, crawling to the woman that lay there in the center of the firestorm of fighting. Immediately Holly saw that she was slowly freezing to death and took off her own shoes, putting them on the woman. She took off the parka she wore over another jacket and wrapped the woman's bare legs in it. It was the best she could do and not freeze to death herself.
She covered the woman with her body and watched as the vampire she could hardly breathe without pummeled the other that had come to take her. Holly saw a large vampire advance on her and the woman and she burrowed in deeper beside her, making herself smaller. He looked bad. Worse than the one named Nathan.
Nothing like the one that defended her.
Cole saw Alexander advance on the women and redoubled his efforts to dispatch the Reapers. Nathan and he worked in tandem very well.
It was no different now. Nathan got a strangle hold on with one Reaper, the breath torn from his body and Cole stabbed him in the skull with a talon, twisting it at the last moment, so the brain was scrambled, its signals--gone. The Reaper's body imploded into a pile of ash, as effective as removing the head. He and Nathan turned in time to see Alexander grab the young Druid and she shrieked.
For the rogue.
The rogue turned from the body of a Reaper he had just dec
apitated, dumping it like trash at his feet and flung himself toward Alexander. His Druid's blood made him choose rashly, impulsively. For Alexander was a thousand years old and this rogue was no match for his stealth.
Cole could see the killing blow blossom from Alexander's hand.
And then Nathan threw himself in the path of it. Committing suicide, saving the rogue, giving Cole the chance he needed.
His chest tight, Cole attacked Alexander even as the last of his Reapers fell, a remaining rogue standing in triumph over the body, his face a bloody mask in the moonlight.
Cole pierced Alexander from behind, his talons sinking deeply into his back and with a gurgled yell he flung the girl at the ground and Zach scooped her up against him, sprinting away from their fight.
Powerless to stop it, Cole felt Alexander shift to heal his wounds, Cole's hand in the middle of it.
Then he was away, his huge wings taking him into the air and over their heads. Eyes that glowed red looked down on the group for one--two heartbeats. He sailed off, swooping over the tops of the trees, splattered blood on the snow the only sign that Cole had pierced a lung.
Alexander had escaped.
