I was seeing him upside down but the guys in the back seat summed it up, “What the fuck? Who the fuck are you?”
He was my savior... whoever he was.
Matt was backing off me in a hurry, leaving me to the stranger's mercy. With my head spinning all I saw was a strong jaw, black jeans, boots and a bad-ass leather zip-up. As he leaned down, the whiteness of his teeth gleamed in the interior dome light of the car, his nearly bald head had an inky wash of short black hair covering it, the shirt breaking open at the neck to reveal a tattoo that crawled up his neck.
He wasn't big on conversation, his hand snaking out in a lethal punch that terminated on Matt's nose. There was a sickening crunch and he backed up, howling. His bleeding hand with my teethmarks held what I was sure was a broken nose as he fell right outside the car on his ass.
The stranger looked down at me then and his eyes were a startling blue, not icy pale like mine. They were nearly white in a face that was pale, his lush mouth a deep scarlet slash. He looked me over carefully, but only a second or two as he was going to have to deal with Rugged and Guy X. Those two had gotten out of the car and I was too weak to even turn over and see things right side up. If he'd meant me harm, it would have happened.
At least that's what I told myself.
Rugged and Guy X faced him. “You could have had a piece of this action, if you'd asked nice.”
The stranger looked briefly at Michelle who was trying to stop crying, the sobs turning to hitching hiccups. Then he spared a glance in my direction, taking in my clothes in disarray, my face starting to swell from the blow I'd received.
“They do not look as though it was the attention they wished for,” the stranger responded.
I noticed that he was enormously big compared to the two men who had abused Michelle. And that was saying something because Matt had me by inches and I was five-eight.
Rugged said, “You talk funny.”
“As do you,” Stranger said.
Guy X circled around him, taking his measure as a male. “I think you need an ass-kicking. You've beat the shit out of our car in the middle of fuckin' winter in this cold-ass place, ruined another piece of easy tail for me and my buds here. You gotta get what's comin' to ya.”
Stranger looked at them as they rushed him at the same time. From my angle I saw everything upside down and in slow motion. Rugged came at him like a charging bear and Stranger swung his arm forward in a stiffened knife jab move and with the flat of the palm he landed it square in Rugged's nose. He stared blankly for a moment then fell like a box of rocks, his nose shattered. Guy X was a slow learner and grabbed him from behind and latched onto his wind pipe. Stranger grabbed the forearm which held him, crushing it before my eyes just using the one hand, while the other spun Guy X around to stare at him. He was howling, taking great lungfuls of air to bellow louder.
“Stop that noise,” Stranger said.
And he did.
The stranger stared into the eyes of Guy X. “Tilt your head.”
Guy X looked like he was in a fog, as if he was not in command of his mind. He cocked his head to the extreme left. The long, clean line of his neck was exposed under the street lamp, the artificial light casting a ghostly yellow on the flesh of his throat.
The stranger reared back like a snake and hissing, struck Guy X's neck. His teeth as he arced above Guy X's neck was something I would never forget:
They were fangs.
I was riveted. My presumed savior was not a man... he was something else. I had to get out of here. I tried to sit up and my head swam. I was woozy from the blow. The stranger had gathered Guy X in his arms and was taking great gulps from him but his eyes were pinned on me.
Time. To. Go.
I looked over the back seat and met Michelle's horrified eyes. Her mascara had made its way all over her face and I said, “Let's get out of here. Right now.”
I slid out of the car, one of my high heels falling off and was met by another stranger. This one had blonde hair and the same icy-blue eyes as the other.
They were busy tonight.
This one was all over Matt. He sucked at his neck while Matt made disconcerting mewling sounds underneath him. He lifted his mouth off Matt long enough to hiss at Michelle, which got us moving.
We backed away, both my shoes left on the sidewalk. They watched us but did not follow, taking the last of the men's blood. Their lives ebbed as we watched.
“What are they?” Michelle whispered.
“Ah... I think we've just been saved by those blood-killers.”
“They... they raped the women...”
We looked at each other, dawning comprehension mirrored in our expressions.
We ran.
We ran until my lungs burned, the images of them sucking those guys lives away etched permanently in my brain. We were within sight of my car when we saw them leaning against it, one dark, the other light.
“Holy shit,” Michelle stammered.
Yeah, that.
They came off the car at the same moment like perfectly choreographed twins. But it was the dark one that made my heart speed in my chest.
They came to stand before us. “We need to scrub them both. They have seen entirely too much,” the blonde one said, his stare going from Michelle to me.
The dark one laid his icy gaze on me and I shivered. From what I didn't know but his gaze penetrated my bone and marrow.
“Holy shit,” Michelle said again.
I seconded that.
Still I said nothing while they looked at us for a long moment. “No. The blonde one forgets. This one, no.”
“Why, Cole?” the blonde stranger asked. “She is fair of face and figure, but there are many...”
“You cannot smell her?” Cole asked.
The blonde's head whipped around and his penetrating gaze was suddenly all for me; I backed away.
Finally, he shook his head. “All I smell is their fear. They smell like prey.”
“Underneath that, Nathan.”
One moment he was ten feet away and the next he had his arms around me and I screamed. Michelle started to run but faster than my eyes could track, the one named Cole had her in his arms, his hand covering her mouth and the fingers of those long hands feathered her temple. And I'd thought Matt's hand had been big... my God, his were palming her entire face.
Voices drifted down, the blonde's face was buried in my neck and I began to hyperventilate. Images flooded my mind of my would-be rapists not finishing what they started, distracted with death-by-blood loss.
“Be still,” he said, his fangs bursting out of his mouth.
I thrashed around and he turned to Cole. “She will not follow my command.”
“Will it so,” Cole said.
He buried his nose in my neck, breathing my scent in, his fangs grazing the skin of my neck. Lifting his head he said, “Breeder.”
“Yes.”
“We must take her. There are so few left. This one is... she is rare.”
A drunken group stepped out into our little mess and Michelle began hollering, “Help, help!”
A couple of the guys broke away from the pack and made their way over to us, Cole stood away from Michelle and the blonde released me slowly, like he didn't want to stop touching me.
As they approached the males, they looked into their eyes and each stranger said, “Leave this place.” One of the men grabbed his temples with his hands, shaking his head like he couldn't release the clutches of something.
“That one has a strong mind,” Nathan said.
“Some of the cattle do,” Cole said.
Cattle.
I started to back away, subtly getting Michelle's attention. We were almost to the car when Cole's head whipped around. “You... will not leave.”
Michelle began hollering again but the men walked away. The one who shook his head cast a final glance behind him. As we watched he massaged his temple, continuing to walk away.
They retraced their steps t
oward us and my heart sank. We could not outrun something we couldn't see move, something that crushed a man's face with one swipe, disintegrated an arm with a grip strong enough to pulverize bone. As they drew nearer, their fangs stood out of their mouths, barbed points ready to pierce our flesh.
Michelle latched on to my hand and I prepared myself for the worst.
“You cannot thirst.”
“No, but the blonde one's fear is an aphrodisiac,” Nathan said.
“Yes, but think on this Nathan: has she not already been degraded enough by the human scum we dispatched?” Cole said.
“Yes,” Nathan ground out. “You speak true.”
“Then scrub her and we take the female breeder.”
Nathan approached Michelle and she started to wail, her screams broken only by her next breath.
The blonde was suddenly in front of her. Squeezing her throat lightly, he cut off her screaming and the sudden silence filled the parking area. The snow was falling softly around us, some of the flakes catching in my eyelashes. Nathan stared deeply into Michelle's eyes. Finally he moved away and she stood there, blank faced, in a zombie-like stupor.
“What did you do to her?” I whispered.
“Something we cannot do for you,” Cole remarked.
I backed away and they tracked me. “I am not going with you,” I said, proud that my voice only shook a little.
“We understand your fear, but you will come with us. How do you humans put it? It is non-negotiable.”
“You don't understand anything! You two... whatever-you-are, sucked our attacker's blood. They died and now you're calling me some kind of 'breeder'. No offense, but it's not looking too good on my end.”
My eyes bounced from one to the other of them. I couldn't follow their movements, just when I thought I had one in my sights they moved so fast they were both suddenly one foot away from me, each holding an arm. I opened my mouth to scream and Cole put his mouth on mine, stifling it. His kiss blossomed and spread to the center of me, making my panties instantly moisten. I'd never had a reaction like this in my life.
Of course, I'd always made out with human men.
My fear was in my throat but my biology was never touched by it. I couldn't move my arms but as my mouth moved against his, he released my arm and I wound it around his neck, pressing his lips harder against mine and he groaned and pulled me against him. My mind played tug-of-war, my intellect was screaming that he was some creature of the night. He'd killed two men before my eyes but my center bloomed for him; heat stretching and spreading from between my legs. My nipples hardened and he reached behind me, placing his hands under my thighs. Never breaking from the kiss, he lifted me up and I wound my legs around his waist.
“She is so eager,” Nathan said, releasing my other arm. He circled us, grabbing a piece of my hair and flicking it behind my shoulder.
That broke through the heat of the moment and my intellect slammed back into place. I broke away and shoved at his chest with my hands. He let me slide down his body and when my feet hit the pavement, the cold moved up my legs, freezing that searing heat before it progressed.
I gave Nathan a dirty look, noticing Michelle still stood there in the same position, gooseflesh covering her arms, her teeth chattering.
“I don't know what you are, or why this is happening but I just want you to go... now. I will get my friend and I home without any help from you.” I folded my arms across my chest.
“Your body speaks for what you want. It speaks for what you are.”
“Oh?” I arched my eyebrow. “What is it that I am?”
“It is what is in your blood, you are of Druid blood. They are the only humans that may breed with us.”
Druid? What the hell was that?
Okay, next question:
“What are you?”
They looked at each other. “We are Vampire, witch,” Cole said as if that should have been obvious.
Witch? Had the conversation devolved to name-calling at two a.m.?
“Do you know of your people?”
I couldn't believe I was standing out here in twenty degree weather talking to a couple of guys claiming to be vampires. I felt incredibly stupid to have kissed the one... Cole.
“Ah, no. I'm adopted. Okay, while all this is interesting, it's time to go.”
I turned to Michelle, who had a spot of drool coming out of her mouth. God, what did they do to her? I walked over to her, grabbing a limp arm and started dragging her to my car.
Suddenly, they stood in front of me.
“Would you stop doing that!” I said, fear choking me.
A smile spread over Cole's face. “Doing what?” His fangs were smaller now that he wasn't trying to French me.
Sirens began in the distance and we all looked in their direction.
“The human police,” Nathan said.
“Yes.”
“Another time, breeder,” Cole said. He licked his finger and touched it on my forehead. “I mark you for another time, very soon.”
They disappeared into thin air and I was left with Michelle, the approaching cops, and a pulsing core that wept for the vampire that was now gone.
CHAPTER 4
My eyes felt like they had crushed glass in them but I wasn't going to bed any time soon. These assholes had made me repeat the same answers to the same shit about two hundred times. I was getting pissed. Poor Michelle was curled up, sleeping on the couch, a rape kit finished and being processed.
“Okay, Miss Collins, I want to ask you one more time,” the detective ran slim hands through his hair, making it whack out in all different directions. Its honey-colored goodness would have been fun to look at had I not been at the Anchorage Police Station at going on four-oh-hell in the morning.
“You claim your friend,” and he threw a look at Michelle, who was a small mound under the gunmetal gray blanket they'd thrown over her on the lumpy precinct couch, “was attacked.” He looked down at his notepad, scrolling down with his finger until he found the detail he was looking for, “...by two men, claiming to be vampires. That, inadvertently,” he made airquotes here, “saved you from the attackers.”
I wanted to punch him in the snout, he was just that condescending.
I was so done here. “Listen... Detective...”
“Jewel, Christopher Jewel.”
Fine. “Anyway, my friend just got a fun rape kit done, and you have three bodies without any blood... right?”
He tapped his pen on his notepad. “Actually, we have evidence that suggests there was an incident at that location, but there has not been any bodies recovered.”
Wow... the vampires had done away with the evidence. My heart sped thinking about how fast they'd had to been to go back to the scene and get rid of three men before the police got there.
“And the vampire story...” he looked at me like, you really expect me to believe this?
“That's what they told me,” I replied.
“That is a myth, there are no such thing as vampires. However, I know from the minute that you came in here I have not been able to get touching you out of my mind.” His eyes stared into mine and I got up so quickly from the chair it fell over with an echoing clatter of metal against tiled linoleum.
He walked over to me as if he was in a fugue. “You smell,” and he leaned in as I leaned away, “very good.”
Okay, now things were getting weird. Mr. Professional Cop was coming on to me in the middle of the police station when he should be getting my statement.
“It says here that, 'he was kissing me, then heard the police sirens and he and the other vampire left',” he resumed his questioning.
I nodded. Maybe he'd get off all the personal weirdness then. I covertly looked around in the hopes of spotting another cop. There was only Michelle on the couch and a lone secretary waaayyyy down the hall.
Shit.
As if on cue, he walked over to Michelle. “She smells fuckable too,” he said and with that, he whipped off the
cover and spread her legs.
She stirred in her sleep when I yelled, “Hey!” This couldn't be happening. Where was everyone? What-the-hell?
What the blue fuck was wrong with him?
But he'd already put a finger inside her, and started pumping it back and forth. “Yeah, she's still really lubed up from all that cum that got dumped in there.”
I ran over there and shoved him and he turned, my friend's crotch spread to the world. He backhanded me and I spilled on the floor as he all but ran over to the door, closing it and locking it in place. My face stung unmercifully having just been hit in the same spot a couple of hours before.
It felt like days.
Where the hell were all the other cops?
I tried to scramble to my feet but he tackled me, tearing at my skirt and ripping down my panties. I responded with a knee to the crotch, my jaw on fire.
As if from a distance, I heard a crash and glass shattered behind me, falling like crystal rain all around us, my arms shielding my face.
I didn't open my eyes as Detective Jewel was torn off me. I became aware of the fact that there wasn't any more noise and cold air was rushing in and... I had no clothes on.
I closed my legs all the way and threw my hands down to cover the apex of my thighs.
I opened my eyes and there were Nathan and Cole, the vampires were back.
“Has she been... violated?” Nathan asked.
Cole bent down, putting his nose right above my crotch and I flinched, he laughed. He shook his head. “No, there is no human taint upon her.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the secretary and said, “Take care of the human female and all that you encounter in the interim.”
Nathan nodded and sped down the hall, a blur of gray, the black softened by the motion of his body.
Cole swung his gaze back to me. “Are you alright?”
I nodded stiffly, his voice was like velvet gravel and I became aroused again. I was instantly furious with myself. I had just about been raped by a police officer for shit's sake and here I was: ready-to-hump a stranger that wasn't even human. I started shaking from shock and cold.
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