His beard pricked her palm. “You’re not a monster.”
“I am what I am. No sense dressing it up.”
“I hate it when you do that.”
“What?”
“Try to make me dislike you.”
“Baby, that’s not even logical.” He pulled her into his lap.
“I know. You should work on it.”
A commotion on the other side of the room drew her attention. Before she could turn, Caleb’s arms locked down, immobilizing her, keeping her from seeing any of it. Hearing a stuttered gurgle, she bit her lip and understood why he blocked her view. “I don’t like this.”
He looked over her head, nodding to someone she couldn’t see. “No reason you should.”
“All done.”
She recognized Slade’s voice.
She clutched Caleb’s shoulders as he leaned forward and then back, rising smoothly to his feet. “Time to go.”
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
She raised her eyebrow at him. “Then why am I not standing?”
“Because I’m having a hard time getting rid of the image of you walking up to three vampires after I told you to run.”
“I knew what I was doing.” It was only a small lie. Part of her had known exactly what she was doing. She just hadn’t made the acquaintance of that part of herself at the time.
“Bullshit.” The air crackled around them. Caleb turned sideways to get them through the door. “It was reckless, impulsive, and foolhardy.”
The brothers fell into step beside them. Armed and ready, they were an impressive escort.
“You left out successful,” Jace said, coming up alongside.
She countered Caleb’s “Shut up” with a smile. “Thank you.”
She craned her neck until she could check the condition of the men around them. They were all there, in various stages of worse-for-wear, but there. “How did you find us?”
“Once Caleb sent word you’d set out, we followed along in case your welcome wasn’t as warm as you were hoping.”
“You could have stepped it up,” Caleb growled. His grip tightened. He was still angry.
“Had a bit of trouble with the D’Nallys,” Jace growled.
“Not to mention that barricade.” Slade stepped over the body of a dead hopeful. Allie felt a twinge of pity for the misguided soul until Slade bent down and picked up the gun a couple feet away. “Our friend Vincent might have been nuttier than a cow on loco-weed, but he was brilliant when it came to weapons.”
He fired the weapon. The wall exploded. “Laser mixed with light in the spectrum of sunlight. Silent but deadly to weres and vamps alike.”
Slade nodded. He threw the weapon over his shoulder. “Except to our Caleb here.”
“Why in hell would someone invent a weapon like that?”
“Only one reason I can think of,” Jace offered, checking the next hall. He stepped in, reappearing a second later, motioning them on. “Someone’s readying for a war.”
“The question is, against who?”
Caleb stepped through the door. “My guess would lean toward everyone who doesn’t fit their genetic ideal.”
Allie shook her head. “It’s bigger than just Vincent.”
The men glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, when I was connected to Vincent, I felt a connection to more entities, widespread but connected.” She shook her head. “I don’t think killing Vincent put an end to this.”
The men glanced at each other and then around the high-tech room. Jared summed up the brothers’ thoughts in one word, “Shit.”
Caleb shifted his rifle in his grip. “In that case, we’d better get going.”
Jared fell into position ahead of them, clearing a path. A mean, angry man looking for an excuse to vent. She felt sorry for anyone who got in his way.
Caleb fell into step behind them, still carrying her. Under his guise of strength she could feel how weak he really was. “Let me walk.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She frowned up at him. “Don’t make me go all vampiress on you.”
The flash of amusement in his eyes soothed a bit of the fear inside. “You can throw anything you want at me, baby.”
The “It’s not going to scare me” was implied. She patted his cheek and tugged his head down so she could whisper in his ear, “Put me down before you fall down.”
He grimaced. “You weren’t supposed to notice.”
“Don’t worry. I still think you’re macho.”
“Ouch.”
“What? You notice everything about me, why can’t I notice a thing or two about you?”
“Because it’s hard on a man’s pride,” Jace said, coming up beside them. “I can take her.”
“I can walk.”
No one paid her any attention. Caleb handed her over. She would have wiggled in protest, but her legs and arms had the substance of Jell-O.
Since she had no choice, she relaxed against Jace and asked, “Is Caleb really going to be all right?”
“What did Slade say?”
“He said he would.”
“Then he will be. Slade is never wrong.”
She rested her head on Jace’s shoulder. It wasn’t comfortable like Caleb’s, but it was okay. “It’s really not fair. You all turn vampire and become supermen. I turn vampire and remain a wuss.”
All she could see of Jace’s smile was the slight crease where his chin met his cheek. “I wouldn’t exactly call you a wuss.”
Caleb’s “hardly” was dry. He caught the gun Jared threw him. It took him about three seconds to figure out the mechanism. He tossed it in his hands, testing its weight. Guns were obviously a guy thing, because it looked damn natural in his hands. “Let’s move.”
He gave her a smile. She tried to smile back, but in reality, reaction was setting in and her composure was a bit limp at the corners. Caleb frowned, obviously not buying her act. Well, hell, she used to be better at this.
“Don’t feel bad. He does that to all of us,” Jace said.
“What?”
“Sees more than we want him to.”
“Who says I’m hiding something?”
“That big grin on your face, when anyone can see how hard you’re shaking.”
“Damn.”
Caleb came over and brushed her cheek with his thumb. There was blood on the back of his hand and a lethal energy about him. He was almost a stranger except for the crook of his grin and the emotion in his touch. Gentleness in both at a time when he’d never looked more savage.
“We’ll have you home soon.”
Home. Back to the ranch that was a strange mix of paranormal beings, modern science, and antiquity. Who would have thought it could sound so good? “Thank you.”
His finger stroked the curve of her lips in a familiar caress, rubbing at the corner. Spit or blood? She almost asked which and then stopped herself. She really didn’t want to know. “I look a mess, huh?”
“You look beautiful.”
The glance Caleb cut Jace from under his brow was dead serious. “No matter what, you keep her safe.”
“You’ve got it.”
One tap of his finger on her lips, which had them plumping and firming for a kiss that didn’t come, and she was looking at his back. His broad, injured, determined back. “Does he ever believe he can’t win?”
Jace shifted her weight in his arms. She clutched his coat until she was sure he wasn’t going to drop her. “No.”
“Why not?”
As soon as Jared gave the “all clear” they went to the next corridor, toward . . . She took a moment to orient herself. The night. It was night. Thank God.
“Are we going to have time to get back?”
“Yes.”
Jace stopped at another door, dropped into a crouch, and set her beside him. The sounds of combat came at them from the other side. “Stay.”
She tucked her feet und
er her, ready to move. “I’m not a dog.”
“If you were, we could just slap a leash on you when you got difficult.”
“Charming.”
He slipped his gun off his shoulder. “I try.” His attention was clearly ahead and not on her. She’d rather he be ahead, with Caleb, who didn’t seem to understand his injuries made him vulnerable. “I really don’t mind if you join in the fun.” Whatever was happening on the other side of the door was definitely a more-the-merrier situation.
“You’re stuck with me.”
“The bad guys are ahead of us. I’ll be fine if you”—the wall shook as something slammed into it—“want to even the odds.”
“There’s only about a dozen in there.”
Which meant the odds were three to one. She inched away from the wall, expecting to see something unpalatable burst through it at any moment. “I realize, back in your day, it was cool to pretend the impossible was possible, but these days we just ask for help.”
He had the gall to look surprised. “You really don’t know Caleb that well, do you?”
“No.”
He grinned. “Trust me, with the odds three to one, the only ones you have to feel sorry for are those on the other side.”
Another . . . something hit the wall. Jace smiled when she flinched. Asshole.
She eyed the knife in his belt. “At precisely what point should I be concerned?”
“When someone tells you to run.”
“Uh-huh.” In her experience that was usually too late. “I’m not good at running.”
He considered that for an instant, taking his gaze from the door before turning it on her. For once there was no laughter, just seriousness as he studied her from beneath the brim of his hat. “So I’ve heard.”
She drew her chin up. She might feel like a bowl of quivering Jell-O because of what had happened in that room, but she wasn’t afraid. The wall shook again and she jumped. Well, not much anyway. Jace kept staring and she kept glaring. He nodded as if something had been settled. He pulled the knife out and handed it to her, hilt first. “If you need to use this, don’t hesitate. Thrust first and ask questions later.”
The knife felt good in her hands—comfortable. “You know, I think you might just become my favorite brother-in-law.”
He fired three times in rapid succession with the sunlight gun as a body came through the doorway. The vampire didn’t get up, likely due to the huge, gaping hole through his chest. Smoke rose from his unnaturally still body. Jace glanced at her. “Do me a favor and don’t tell Caleb that.”
“Why not?”
“When it comes to you, the man has a short fuse, and he’s still sputtering over our introduction.”
She shifted the knife in her grip, hilt up. “Come to think of it, so am I.”
He looked at the knife and the implication. Unbelievably he laughed. “I bet you give Caleb fits.”
“As often as I can.”
Three sharp whistles and he relaxed. “Looks like things are cleaned up.”
The room was carnage. Absolute, amazingly bloodless carnage. Apparently, laser guns cauterized as they destroyed. Allie was pretty sure just to the left of her was an arm, all alone, lying there as if waiting for the body it was supposed to be attached to show up. Her stomach heaved. She swallowed hard. Immediately, Caleb’s gaze swung her way. She smiled, hoping she didn’t look as appalled as she felt. It’d be nice if he could be proud of her for a change.
He came toward her, big and mean, stepping over the bodies as if they didn’t matter, as if what he’d done didn’t matter. Which logically she knew it didn’t, but she wasn’t used to this kind of life, and killing, even if it was necessary, just wasn’t that easy to adjust to. His hand closed around hers. Warm and strong, pulling her to her feet. Some of the coldness and uncertainty inside left. She rubbed his forearm. “Were you hurt?”
“Nah. How about you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I can see that.”
He pulled her into his side. She pretended it was the way he held her that forced her face into his chest and not the horror of the room. The other brothers were rummaging through the bodies, taking and discarding stuff as they went. Some of the items they kept caused a flare of excitement that reached across the room. Men, give them a gadget and they were all the same. “How much farther?”
“We’re almost there.”
There was a certain tension in his voice that made her ask, “We’ll be more vulnerable when we’re outside, won’t we?”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”
She did push back then. “I’m not some fragile flower you have to protect. I can help.”
He shoved her face back into his chest as they headed toward another doorway. “I’ll call on you if you’re needed.”
“Don’t think I don’t hear that silent ‘And that’ll be when they’re making snowballs in hell’ attached to that statement.”
“The day comes that I can’t take care of my own will be the day you can start fighting my battles for me.”
“We have seriously got to talk about your he-man issues.”
“Uh-huh.” He started walking, taking her with him.
She inched forward with her left foot, pushing against his side. She might as well have pushed a concrete wall. “It really sucks that I didn’t get any vampire muscle.”
He kept moving, slowly and steadily. “Even if you had, you’d be no match for a male vampire.”
“You don’t know that.”
His reply was a grunt. It was a small victory, but at this point she was taking them where she could get them. Her foot tangled with his leg. He handled the stumble by lifting her up until she caught her balance.
“This will go a lot easier if you’d let me see where I’m heading.”
“In a minute.”
She wrestled a peek down and immediately wished she hadn’t. The sight of a decapitated body was vividly close. She pressed her face into his ribs hard enough that she was in danger of leaving a permanent imprint. “Oh God.”
“I told you not to look.”
“No, you didn’t. You said ‘in a minute.’ That’s not the same thing at all.”
“It is to me.”
She swallowed back her gorge. Her throat was tight in the aftermath. “I’m adding communication issues to the stuff we need to work on.”
“I communicate just fine. The way I see it, your listening is off.”
“Uh-huh.” She stumbled, unthinkingly reaching out and grabbing his bad arm. He didn’t say a word, just gave a short grunt of pain and an equally short grunt in response to her apology.
“Seriously, this is not comfortable, so if what’s ahead of us has an ick factor under five, I’d appreciate you letting me go.”
A pause. “I’d say we’re looking at ten and up.”
“Great.”
His response was to bend his knees, slide down her body, and lift her up. His shoulder dug into her stomach. Up became down. She braced her hands on his butt, locking her elbows, shaking her hair out of her eyes, but keeping them shut. “Okay. This is too caveman even for me.”
“Would you rather wade through a puddle of blood?”
The image was too graphic. “I suppose I can suffer it for a bit.”
“I thought so.”
She stuck her tongue out at his back. She tried to gauge the distance they traveled by counting his steps, but math had never been her best subject and the dread of a psychotic hopeful or a demented vampire leaping out of the shadows and clawing her unprotected back wore on her concentration. Finally the suspense got to be too much for her. A quick peek behind revealed nothing revolting. They’d moved into another corridor. This one, thankfully, free of new death decor.
“Caleb?”
He didn’t slow. “What?”
“Thanks for coming with me.” That wasn’t what she really wanted to thank him for, but she didn’t know how to thank him for enduring the agony Vincent had in
flicted on him, for holding on because she’d needed him, for being there for her through the hell she’d gotten them into.
“I didn’t exactly have a choice.”
Yes he did. And seeing as how he had, she could admit something else. “You were right about the other, too.”
“What other?”
“You know.”
“No I don’t.”
Two more steps and then a rhythmic jostling that took her a minute to comprehend. They were climbing the stairs. Which meant they were almost outside. God knows what awaited her there. Her throat closed. She had to take a careful breath through her nose, holding it to the count of ten before she could find her voice through her terror. “It was really stupid of me to insist on coming here.”
“You disregarded my gut instincts.”
“I was wrong.”
“You can make it up to me later.”
“I’m not sure I was that wrong.”
Something hard and metal rapped against her butt. The gun? “You will be.”
“What?”
“Sure.”
“What makes you think that?”
The barrel tapped her butt again, not so gently this time. “Because I intend to paddle your ass until you are.”
21
THE trip back to the Circle J had been anticlimactic. So much so, that Allie really didn’t know how to cope with the tension that held her. She’d been braced to fight something, anything, but they’d encountered nothing but the dark of night and the uneasy sensation that they were being watched every step of the way. Despite their clean getaway, she didn’t believe this was over. Neither did anyone else. The sounds of preparations were everywhere as the Circle J prepared for war. The only question was who would they be battling, the Sanctuary or the D’Nallys, too?
She’d prefer they didn’t fight anyone. Maybe the Sanctuary would be impossible to talk down to peace, but she was sure there was a shot with the D’Nallys. Allie rubbed harder at the moisture in her hair, and plopped on the bed. Someone should try rather than just assume it was impossible. But, of course, no one listened to her. She was just the reasonable one on a ranch full of out-of-control males.
Oh hell. She blew her bangs off her forehead. She was driving herself nuts with this, and she was too tired to deal with much of anything. She pressed against her stomach as it rumbled. Tired and hungry.
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