Turning to face Braeden, he started to speak, but the vampire lashed out, slashing the side of Jachin’s throat with his vampire talons.
Anger blurred Jachin’s vision and the tips of his fingers tingled. Before he knew what happened, Braeden held his hand over his left cheek. Blood welled between his fingers and the vampire roared his anger. “You dare to challenge me?”
Jachin moved his fingers back and forth by his side. The wet sensation between them told him his talons dripped with Braeden’s blood. “I just returned the favor—”
Braeden launched himself at Jachin, slamming his fist into Jachin’s face.
Pain exploded in his head and Jachin flew across the room, crashing against the built-in bookcases.
Vengeance curled in his belly, swiftly rising to his chest, a contained explosion ready to blow. Books were scattered around him as Jachin landed on the stone floor in a predatory crouch.
Braeden flung Jachin’s blood from his fingers, the thick red fluid spattering across the floor as he bit out, “You’re banished from our clan. Get the hell out of Sanguinas manor.”
Jachin narrowed his gaze on the Sanguinas leader. His gut burned in fury at the unjust punishment. “You can’t banish me for being with Vivian. She’s not your mate.”
Braeden’s thin upper lip curled in a sneer. “The prophecy might bind me, but Vivian is mine!”
“You use the prophecy as it suits you,” Jachin ground out. He knew Braeden never planned to mate with Vivian, prophecy or not. Despite his involvement with Vivian, the man had slept with many willing Sanguinas women.
Braeden’s face turned red and a thick vein throbbed on his temple. “You dare to question my belief in the prophecy? I have given up my own personal desires because of it.”
Jachin’s shoulders tightened as he glared at Braeden. “You don’t have the authority to banish me. It must be a unanimous decision by the entire council.”
The vampire leader gave a confident smirk. “The council knows I hold the prophecy and the well-being of the Sanguinas in the highest regard.”
When Braeden turned and walked out of the room, Vivian followed in his wake. Not once did she glance Jachin’s way as she called out to her longtime lover, “I like hearing you say I’m yours. Say it again….”
Jachin jerked awake to crickets sawing their high-pitched songs and frogs croaking. Cool air stirred around them as Ariel slept curled close. She felt so good in his arms, supple and warm.
He was surprised he’d dreamed about his banishment. He hadn’t thought about it in at least five years. As he gazed down at Ariel’s pert nose, he realized her question as to why his clan members would try to kill him was the cause of his dream.
The Sanguinas didn’t want him to return.
He closed his eyes at the unsettling paradox of his situation. She was destined to be Braeden’s mate. He couldn’t change the prophecy or his unwavering belief in its power to set the Sanguinas on the right path. He’d desired Vivian, nothing more. But this woman—this human—Jachin felt an unprecedented need to protect…and to claim as his.
He lightly ran his finger down Ariel’s temple. She sighed in her sleep, turning toward his touch. As she rolled onto her back and her pink lips parted slightly, his cock instantly hardened at the delicate softness of her skin and the desire to feel the press of her lips against his once more.
A hard lump surged in his throat. Maybe it was her sheer vulnerability that called to his inner primordial beast. Or the fact she both feared and trusted him that fueled his desire for her.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly pulled away from her and stood. As his gaze traveled the smooth column of her throat and the gentle swell of her breasts pressing against her wrinkled and dirt-stained shirt, a powerful, wrenching surge of arousal rocked through him. How bitterly ironic to find himself caught in the same untenable situation, desiring a woman he couldn’t have.
This time around, the stakes were higher—despite his own personal emotions being involved and battling within him, the whole clan’s future depended on his delivery of the one human who could turn their fate around.
As he acknowledged the distinction, Jachin set his jaw. Clenching his fists, he turned and walked away. He needed to remove himself from the temptation that lay sleeping in his “bed” on the forest floor.
Fifteen minutes later, as Jachin turned around to head back to Ariel, something didn’t feel right. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and the air in the forest seemed suddenly still, as if nature were holding an anticipatory breath, waiting.
He’d only taken a couple of steps when a gust of wind carried a very familiar scent his way, a split second before a heavy weight landed on his shoulders, knocking him to the ground.
Jachin’s lungs burned with the need for air from the impact, but he ignored the pain and shrugged the person’s bulk off his shoulders. Rolling in the forest underbrush to a squatted crouch, Jachin faced his attacker and snarled, “So much for our truce.”
Landon stood and brushed dirt from his jeans in unhurried movements. His green gaze narrowed in the darkness. “I told you I’d be asked to hunt you down.”
Jachin heard the rustle of footsteps approaching in the woods. His shoulders tensed as he stood to his full height. “Who’s with you?”
“I’ve scouted ahead for the Garotters.”
Jachin raised his eyebrow. “The government has pulled the Garotters out of retirement? Did the men have to oil their joints first?” Despite his unaffected tone, Jachin honed his senses and zeroed in on the men. He made out footsteps of eight men approaching from the east—blocking his path back to Ariel. He knew he had very little time before the vampire hunters were within shot range.
“Always the sarcastic one.” Landon’s smirk held satisfaction. “These men are second-generation Garotters. Many are ex-military. They have far better weaponry than their predecess—”
Jachin didn’t let Landon finish. He had to get to Ariel. Fangs extended, he launched across the seven-foot distance between them, jamming his shoulder into the werewolf’s stomach and his talons into the man’s sides.
A pained grunt escaped Landon as Jachin rammed him into a thick tree trunk a few feet behind him. Snarling in anger, Landon hammered his fist onto Jachin’s spine, causing his legs to give way at the bone-jarring impact.
Landon roared in pain as he pulled at Jachin’s wrists, trying to dislodge his hold. Jachin only dug his talons deeper into Landon’s sides until both men fell to the ground, grunting and snarling at one another.
The werewolf managed a powerful blow to his shoulder before his own nails ripped at Jachin’s chest. Excruciating pain lanced through him and Jachin smelled his own blood flowing freely. Moving fast, he slammed the heel of his hand against Landon’s chest, sending the werewolf flying backward.
He wasn’t going down that easily.
He rolled onto his side, breathing heavily, and tried to stand when he heard several pulser guns charging up at once.
Jachin glanced at the men surrounding him in a full circle, their guns trained on his head.
Landon staggered to stand and moved to lean over him, blocking out the half moon’s light. “I told you I could take you.”
Despite his throbbing injuries, as his vision blurred, Jachin gritted out, “Only on my worst day.”
The werewolf slammed his fist into his jaw, and Landon’s low laugh was the last sound Jachin heard.
“Get him loaded quickly.” The tall man with light brown hair stood beside Ariel, calling out to the three men dressed in black. The men were carrying Jachin’s half-naked, unconscious body up a ramp and into the back of an uncovered cargo truck.
As the men handcuffed Jachin’s arms behind his back to a metal roll bar, Ariel transferred Jachin’s backpack to her right hand, then ran her left hand over her dry, rumpled clothes.
The sun was about to peek over the horizon, and she remained tense until the men began to pull a camouflage canvas covering over the whaleb
one-style frame inside the truck’s bed. Why she worried that Jachin was going to be burned to a crisp, she had no idea, but regardless of what the vampire had put her through, she didn’t feel he deserved that kind of fate.
“What will happen to him?” she asked, staring at the man who stood beside her.
His steady green gaze met hers. “This is a special task force. I’m not sure how their procedures work.”
One of the men jumped out of the Jeep in front of the truck. She focused on the gold capital G and the dagger that formed part of the letter emblazoned on the back of his black jacket, recognizing the symbol from her vampire history books. These men were Garotters, otherwise known as vampire hunters. At least the government must now know vampires still exist, since they’d funded the Garotters in the past. Ariel shivered slightly under the sun’s warm rays.
She couldn’t believe the nightmare was all over. She’d faced vicious vampires and would live to tell about it…thanks to Jachin. But there was still a strange sense of unfinished business she couldn’t quite shake from her psyche. Maybe because Jachin had saved her life she felt the need to help him in turn.
The man beside her was the only person dressed casually in jeans and a long-sleeved dark blue T-shirt. The shirt had holes around his waist that were stained dark with what she could only guess was dried blood. Had he fought with Jachin? From what she could tell, he wasn’t bleeding anymore. No fresh blood showed through the tears.
She considered his role among the Garotters. He might be dressed in civilian attire, but they seemed to be keeping him in the loop. Maybe he would have some pull on Jachin’s sentencing. “He never hurt me, not really. He—he saved my life several times.”
The man shoved his hands in his jeans’ pockets, then gave her a sidelong look. “Did he say what possessed him to kidnap you?”
The way he asked the question, as if he were surprised by the vampire’s behavior, made her wonder if this man knew Jachin. Ariel nodded. “He said something about fulfilling a prophecy.”
His eyebrows shot up. “He spoke of a prophecy? How do you fit—”
“Landon, we’re ready to roll,” a Garotter called out, giving the man beside her the thumbs-up symbol.
Landon set his mouth in a firm line and addressed her as two men approached carrying pulser guns. “You’ll ride in the front of the truck with them.” Nodding to indicate the Jeeps parked in front and behind the truck, he continued, “You’ll have an escort home. You’re in good hands, Miss Swanson.”
“This is Jachin’s,” she said, handing the backpack to Landon before she followed the two armed men to the front of the truck. She knew she should feel relieved that her ordeal was over, but she didn’t. Right now she was numb all over.
She was so desensitized it took her a second to realize the dark-haired man standing beside her had just locked a handcuff on her right wrist and was snapping the other side on her left wrist in front of her.
What’s going on? Ariel’s heart raced and she jerked her confused gaze to his bug-eyed brown one. “Why did you just put these on me?”
He opened the truck door and made a get-moving motion with his weapon. “Get in, miss.”
Grinding her teeth that he’d ignored her question, Ariel stood her ground. “Not until you take these handcuffs off. I’m the victim, not the criminal.”
The man’s dark eyes narrowed. He pointed his gun at her chest, a high-pitched whine cycling up as it readied to fire. “I said get in.”
Ariel considered yelling for Jachin, but he was unconscious and also bound. Not to mention the fact the soldier in front of her could kill her before she got more than two words out.
Her pulse rushed as she climbed inside the truck. Sitting in the middle of the bench seat, sandwiched between two soldiers, helpless fear crushed her chest. At the same time, a surprising realization hit her: five seconds ago she’d almost called for Jachin. Without hesitation.
How had she come to trust a vampire over everyone else?
A humming movement underneath him, rocking his body from side to side, woke Jachin. Dull pain flared in his back and across his shoulders. His hands were bound behind him and he was sitting on some kind of box in the back of a vehicle.
Shaking off the wooziness, Jachin opened his eyes and Landon’s steady gaze came into focus. The Lupreda sat across from him on a black, wooden, military-style trunk. Jachin noted his backpack sat beside the werewolf on the trunk before he assessed the rest of his surroundings in a quick sweep.
He was handcuffed to a metal pole along the edge of a cargo truck’s bed. One man sat at attention a few feet away at the back of the truck, and another guard was stationed at the front. Both humans held pulser guns. Sunlight filtered under the canvas flap covering the back of the truck.
Damn.
Reaching out with his senses, Jachin detected Ariel’s scent. She was close. Her heartbeat sounded almost frantic, her breathing rapid. He frowned, disturbed by the sound. She’d been saved from the vampire who’d kidnapped her. Shouldn’t he be picking up a sense of relief and calmness in her?
“What did you do to her?” he snarled at Landon. The metal handcuffs clanged against a metal pole. He tugged at his handcuffs, rocking the bar behind him, but the pole didn’t give way.
“She’s safe,” Landon responded.
“Liar!” Jachin’s entire body tensed. He felt every injury writhing through his system as he growled at Landon like a cornered lion. Under the force of his banked anger, the chain holding the metal cuffs behind his back should’ve given way, but it didn’t budge at all. The Garotters must’ve used some kind of special metal he’d never encountered. He needed to know what he was up against. Once he had answers, he’d figure out how to get Ariel out of here without frying himself to a crisp in the process.
Landon scowled. “I never lie. Ariel is fine.”
Something in Landon’s steadfast tone told him the werewolf was telling the truth…as far as he knew it. Jachin slanted his gaze to the two men who still had their weapons aimed at him. Returning his eyes to Landon’s, he kept his mental focus on the two men, concentrating on them as he whispered in their minds, You’re tired…so sleepy you can’t keep your eyes open.
The sound of a gun sliding to the truck’s metal bed drew Landon’s attention. Both men’s heads drooped in a heavy sleep. His gaze snapped back to Jachin’s. “Impressive. I wasn’t aware vampires had such powers.”
“Listen to her heart,” Jachin snarled in fury.
Landon tilted his head for a few seconds, then inhaled. A deep frown furrowed his brow. “I smell her fear.”
“I feel it,” Jachin snarled. “Where are they taking us?”
Landon shook his head. “I don’t know. They called me to track you after the girl was kidnapped. I believe this new Garotter regime may be privately funded.” He gave a sidelong glance to the sleeping men, then leaned toward Jachin. “Ariel said you mentioned the prophecy.”
Jachin’s shoulders bunched in distrust, but if he had to put his faith in at least one werewolf, he hoped to hell he’d picked the right one. “Your scheme to kill us off through poisoned human blood has failed.”
Landon clenched his fists on his knees. “The Lupreda had nothing to do with the humans’ blood turning poisonous to vampires.”
Jachin clenched his jaw in anger. “Even the Lupredas’ blood sickens the Sanguinas. How can you deny your involvement?”
Landon shook his head. “The Lupreda weren’t responsible. And if you’re so certain of our involvement, tell me how our supposed scheme failed.”
Jachin met Landon’s steady gaze. “I don’t believe Ariel’s blood is poisoned.”
Landon cocked an eyebrow. “You don’t believe? Either her blood is poisoned or it isn’t.”
Ignoring the were’s sarcasm, Jachin continued, “She wrote a story about vampires.”
“So?”
Taking a deep breath to help him maintain patience, Jachin continued, “In her fictional story she spo
ke of a prophecy.”
Both Landon’s eyebrows rose this time. “You think she’s the human who’s mentioned in the prophecy you told me about?”
Jachin set his jaw. “I know she is.”
“I’m assuming you were in the process of delivering her to your leader when we caught you. I take it Ariel didn’t approve of being a vampire’s destined mate?”
Jachin clamped his lips in a thin line while conflicting emotions of guilt and duty tugged at his conscience.
“The fact you refuse to respond is all the answer I need.” Adopting a closed expression, Landon leaned back against the pole behind him and folded his arms across his thick chest.
“She’s in danger.” Jachin felt it with every fiber within him.
Landon gave him a condemning look. “Correction. She was in danger.”
Ariel sat between the two men, her anxiety and heart rate rising with each turn of the truck’s wheels. The sound of two rapid gunshots made her jump in her seat.
“What the—sonofabitch!” The man to her right tensed and peered into his rearview mirror. Powering up his weapon, he said to the driver, “Our Jeep in the back just rammed into the mountain!”
Her stomach tensed as more gunfire exploded. The shots were from traditional guns. Have other vampires found us? she wondered when the guard sitting in the passenger seat in the Jeep in front of them slumped forward, quickly followed by the driver.
As the driverless Jeep drove right off the side of the mountain road, the man to her right gripped his gun in one hand and cracked open his door, calling to their driver, “I’m on it. Whatever you do, don’t stop!”
Rolling down the window, he stood and used the heavy door to shield most of his body as he fired off several rounds of pulse shots toward the cliffs above them. Bullets slammed against the truck’s door, making her cringe with each metallic thud.
The Garotter shooting at their attackers suddenly slumped, his upper body slung over the open window to her right.
God, he’s been shot, she thought. Tears of frustration ran down her cheeks. She bit her bottom lip, feeling like the helpless cardboard duck set up at a carnival target shoot.
Scions: Resurrection Page 9
