by Jenna Kernan
He needed to get her out of here before they found her.
Mac thought of the colonel saying that the Corps had never captured a vampire. The colonel had been pleased to have the corpses, but if Mac and Johnny could catch one alive, then they could study it. If there was a next time, the colonel had asked, could Mac try to restrain himself and bring in one still breathing? Mac thought if he and Johnny could catch one and turn it over to Lewis, they’d be heroes and still keep Bri safe, keep her out of it.
Mac pressed a knee to the bed and then stretched out beside her, carefully sliding his stomach to her back. He draped an arm over her arm and tucked her close. Bri sighed and shifted but did not wake, a testament to how exhausted she really was. He pulled Bri deeper into the hollow of his chest and arms as the need to protect her bloomed inside him like spring flowers from a dying tree. Was he keeping her safe, or keeping her only for himself?
Mac didn’t know, but now he wondered what she would say and do when he told her the truth, that he was like Johnny, only unlike him—he could change back.
Immune to her kind, they’d said, but he didn’t feel immune, not to her beauty or her scent or her warm, soft body. Oh, no, not immune. Instead, he felt as if she’d taken him prisoner.
He knew what the colonel would do to her. They’d all been through mock interrogations. She’d never make it.
He breathed in the sweet, alluring fragrance of spices and orchids and the tang of the sea.
Time to find Johnny. With a sigh, he eased away from her. She made a small sound in her throat, as if she was unhappy to see him go. If only that were true.
He crept toward the exit, afraid of what he might do if he looked back. Her sweet floral scent called to him. But he kept moving, fleeing.
He needed to be careful. If he got locked up, they’d put Johnny back in a cage.
Mac eased out of the room and shut the door, leaving it unlocked. Time to face facts. He wasn’t prepared to keep her prisoner or turn her over. Johnny had wanted to kill her. He wanted to keep her. But the safest thing for Johnny was to let her go.
Mac paused outside her door. He felt a hitch in his throat.
“Bye, Bri.”
Mac headed out in his human form. He wasn’t as fast, but he was still as strong and had the endurance of the wolf. Plus he was carrying his pistol and phone so he could talk to Johnny once he found him. And when he found him, he’d assure him that he still had his back, would always have his back.
Johnny’s scent reached him the instant he stepped into the courtyard. Lam was close and Mac had to run only a mile before coming on his friend. Johnny’s wolfish head turned in his direction at Mac’s approach, but he kept his back turned.
“The colonel thinks we are out looking for more vampires.”
Johnny drew a suffering breath and blew it out his long snout, glancing over his shoulder at Mac.
“She says a male attacked her in Sacramento and she ran. They caught her here. She also says she can’t fly, just kind of run superfast.”
Johnny turned his head toward Mac, but still his ears drooped and his eyes stared vacantly at the ground.
“They have the bodies. But I didn’t tell them about her.”
Johnny met his gaze now, alert, waiting.
“I couldn’t kill her, Johnny, and I couldn’t turn her in. I’m sorry. I just couldn’t.”
Johnny lifted two claws before his snout and held them up like fangs.
“I know. I know she’s a bloodsucker, but she’s also a woman who asked for our protection, for Christ’s sake. And isn’t that what we do?”
It was a long time coming, but his friend finally gave one slow nod.
“Johnny, I left her door unlocked.”
His gaze snapped to Mac’s and his expression showed a flash of confusion. He lifted his hands in a silent question...why?
“I don’t know. Maybe I just wanted to show her that we aren’t dumb animals.”
Johnny blew out a breath and gave a sad shake of his head.
“I know she’d likely kill us both if she could.”
He agreed with another slow nod. Then he made a circle with his index finger.
“I don’t want to catch her. I want her to go. We served our purpose. We killed her pursuers. If that’s what she wanted from us than she’ll disappear and good riddance. She’s not our problem, is she? The colonel won’t know, and we can go back to the way things were.” Mac’s smile faded as he held Johnny’s gaze a long, silent moment. Back to living like animals in the woods and getting used as target practice as the REMF—rear-echelon motherfuckers—figured out what to do with them.
Johnny stood and offered a hand to help Mac up. His way of trying to cheer Mac up, Mac supposed. But in his heart, the wasteland stretched out like a wide, empty sea. Likely she was already gone.
“You okay with this?” asked Mac.
Johnny stilled, looked back toward the compound and then raised a hand to his eye, making a circle of his fingers and looking at Mac through the hole.
“They set up two new surveillance cameras. I knocked them out so they won’t see her leave. But they’ll want some answers.”
Johnny pantomimed a phone at his ear.
“Good idea.” Mac drew out his mobile and reported that he’d noticed a camera down. After a moment he shoved the phone back in his pocket. “They’ll have someone out tomorrow to fix it. That should give her time to clear out. You want to scout for any more visitors?” Mac wanted to go back. He wanted it so badly that he knew he couldn’t do it. He had to run, hunt and stay away while she cleared out. It was the only way to protect Johnny and protect the girl.
Johnny nodded and rose.
Mac removed his holster and then stripped out of his clothing, laying them in a neat pile. Then he dropped to a crouch, lowering his head to concentrate first on his sense of smell. This unfortunately brought Vittori’s scent trail to his expanding nostrils.
Rage was the easiest way to summon the change. Usually he thought of the Sandbox, of that night when the last Fire Team was torn to pieces in that slaughterhouse. But not today. Today he recalled the feel of her in his arms and thought of never holding her again. The helplessness and the fury easily triggered the transformation.
The dizzy rush of power ripped through him as his body transformed. His nails turned to claws, his teeth to fangs, and his skin now sprouted the silvery fur of a wolf.
He looked at Johnny, who waited. Johnny was a bigger werewolf. But Mac was meaner and still in charge. Then they were off, searching for the scent trail of a male vampire heading through their territory at a dead run. When they reached the road, it was to find her car gone. Likely picked up by a patrol. He imagined the techies going over it, finding Brianna Vittori’s name on the rental agreement. Had she been stupid enough to keep that with the car? Not doing so would buy her a little time. But not much.
Security was tight at this base, at every base. But they spent most of their energy looking outward. With luck, they wouldn’t look inside the grounds for the driver of that car until she was long gone. Johnny could detect what Brianna Vittori truly was and so could he, but to the others, she would appear to be only a beautiful, alluring woman. If she really could run as fast as she said, then she might just get out of here in one piece.
Mac turned to run the perimeter of their territory, the long fence line. He would be certain that there were no other vampires here before he returned to his empty room, and the empty bed and the empty days ahead.
* * *
Mac was pretty far out when he realized that Vittori might not escape, as he’d hoped, but instead she could head right for headquarters where she would find Lewis.
That realization turned him back toward home. Not wanting to frighten Bri any more than necessary, Mac suffered the transformation befor
e he entered the clearing surrounding the qala. He arrived at dusk and hurried into their quarters, pausing only to grab a set of fatigues from the trunk beside the door. Then he headed into their quarters to find his room empty. His gaze flicked to the window, seeing it still barred, and then glanced to the closed bathroom door. He stepped into the room and heard a soft humming coming from the bathroom, low and lyrical and so sweet it made his chest ache. So she was still here. The relief he felt took him off guard.
Why hadn’t she left?
The humming stopped. Silence stretched. He hadn’t made a sound, so he was quite sure she had not heard him. But what if her hearing was as acute as his? She took a shuffling step, her bare feet whispering across the tile.
“Johnny?” she called, her voice low, cautious.
And then he understood. She could smell him, scent the wolf in him.
“It’s Mac,” he answered.
“Mac?” The question rang clearly in her voice. “Is Johnny there, too?”
Lie or truth? He took the middle ground. “Close by, I’d imagine.” Actually, he didn’t know where Lam was, because he’d left him to head back here.
“My clothes are out there,” said Bri.
“Yes, I see them.” Anticipation curled in his belly. He wanted to see her naked; suddenly he wanted that more than anything else in the world.
He stared at the pile of clothing laying on his empty bed, which he still made each morning with sharp creased corners, though there was no one to inspect it but him. Then he glanced to the orange plastic chair set against the cinder-block walls painted sterile white and windows that were still boarded up tight. Why had he never noticed how empty this room felt?
A bare hand stretched out of the crack in the door. “May I have them please?”
He imagined the possibilities behind that door as he glanced at the pile of grime-streaked garments and then back to his target. “They’re all muddy.”
Frustration rang in her voice. “Well, they’re all I have.”
That made him smile.
“I can give you a clean T-shirt.”
He waited during the long pause.
“All right.”
He opened his footlocker, selecting a white one from the stack of neatly folded T-shirts, and then passed it to her before she closed the door.
“My jeans?” she asked through the closed panel.
“Those you’ll have to come and get.”
He sat on the bed waiting. The door cracked open and she peeked out at him. He tried to look harmless as the wolf inside him roared to life. He stared at her pretty, flushed face as their eyes met and hers grew wide.
He couldn’t keep the smile from curling his lips. “I left the door unlocked.” He glanced to the door and back.
She dropped her gaze. “I know.”
“I thought you’d be gone.”
“Where? I can’t go back home. They’ll be waiting there for sure.”
Brianna Vittori stepped from the steamy bathroom. His T-shirt hung to her midthigh and clung in all the right places. Mac thought that scrap of cotton had never looked so good.
“Did you want me to go?”
He had. But now he was reconsidering. “It would be wise. I lied for you. Told my commanding officer that there were only two intruders.”
She stepped forward, crossing the room on slim bare feet, as silent as a summer breeze.
“You have to see that staying here isn’t an option.”
Brianna halted a few feet away. Was she afraid to move closer or was she afraid for him, if she moved closer.
“My pants?” she asked, extending her hand.
He grasped it and tugged. She tumbled into his lap like a living dream.
“What’s wrong, Princess?”
She slid off his lap, her head now hanging low as if the weight on her shoulders was too much to bear.
“Why do you call me that?”
He shrugged. “You look like one, like a princess in a fairy tale. You know, Snow White and Rose Red?”
She stared for a moment to see if he was mocking her. He wouldn’t be the first to find her red hair an easy target. But she saw no malice in his pale blue eyes.
“You know that story?”
He looked away. “I have parents. They read to me.”
She tried for a smile but got none in return. Instead his frown deepened. She broke eye contact and glance about the unfamiliar room.
“What time is it?” she whispered.
He glanced at his watch, a giant black scuba-style timepiece. “Eighteen hundred hours.”
“What?” Briasked, not understanding. Military time, she realized. Twelve plus the other hours. Eighteen minus twelve. “What time?”
She didn’t even know what day it was. She’d left the hospital on Saturday night and arrived here early Sunday morning, but then she’d slept. Was it still Sunday?
“Six in the evening,” he said. “In civilian time.”
“What day?”
“Sunday.”
He walked to the window and tore the boards off as easily as one might draw back a curtain. Outside the daylight still clung to the barren courtyard, but the sun had set. Was Jeff eating his meal, alone in that hospital bed, wondering where she was, trying her phone and...
She scrambled in her jeans pocket and found her phone gone. Brianna drew her legs up before her and wrapped her arms about them, settling her forehead on the tops of her knees.
MacConnelly came back beside her. He sat with his feet solidly on the ground and his hands on his knees.
“You okay?”
She shook her head. “I lost my phone.”
He said nothing to that.
“And I need to call someone, someone I had to leave behind.”
“Jeffery Martin?”
“How did you know that?”
He reached in the pocket that sat low on his thigh and drew out her pink mobile phone. “He’s left a dozen messages. Handsome guy.”
“Is he all right?”
“Sounded good.”
She gave an exclamation of indignation as she reached for her property. He handed over her phone.
“You can’t call him or turn it on. I disabled it.”
Her jaw dropped open.
He shrugged, showing no regret. “At the very least, the police will use it to find your location. But if those vamps have any kind of surveillance, they are waiting for you to call in. Get a new one.”
She tucked the phone into her front pocket, wondering why she couldn’t turn it on when he obviously had. He’d likely been through every contact, listened to all her messages and voice mail, checked her browser history. Why didn’t she ever set that damned password?
“Can I call him on your phone?”
“And tell him what, that you are escaping from vampires? No, Princess. No calls. For now you’ll stay missing.”
What would Jeffery make of her vanishing?
“Is he your boyfriend?” he asked.
She thought of the image of Jeff on her phone, smiling and healthy. Then she thought of him pale and weak in his hospital bed. When she spoke her words came out in a rush, disorganized and with a breathy quality that showed upset. “Boyfriend. Nana warned me just before she died, but the doctors said her ramblings were the result of the medication. That she was delusional. I didn’t know what to believe. But when Jeffery got sick, I wondered...” She raked a hand through her thick, wet hair, combing out the tangles with her fingers. “Nana knew they were hunting me and she knew it was dangerous for anyone to touch me. I mean, I knew I was different, but what she said seemed so absurd...” Her voice got small. “Why didn’t I believe her?” She lifted her gaze to meet his. Her eyes were huge and round now as she
grappled with her demons. “Do you think they’ll hurt Jeffery?”
“No. But they might use him to try to flush you out. I would.”
She gave him a look of horror. “But he’s sick. He’s in a hospital.”
“Even better.”
She pressed a hand over her mouth as the horror of this struck her. Then she slid her hand away and whispered, “I left him without a word. She said they were upstairs waiting, so I ran.”
“They’ll find you if you go back.”
“I know. But to just leave him. It’s heartless.”
“Not as heartless as going back.”
“Because I might lead them to Jeffery, you mean?”
His mouth went hard and grim as he slowly shook his head.
“He’s very sick, and they don’t really know what caused it.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, and she worried her thumbnail with the pad of her opposite thumb. The shells of her ears glowed pink. “You don’t think it was the vampires? They didn’t bite him, did they?”
“Vampire bites don’t make people sick. It’s not like the movies. They rip open an artery and drink. If they’re still hungry they eat. Liver, usually.”
She shivered and rubbed her hands over her upper arms in a brisk stroke.
“And as for your boyfriend’s illness...” Mac pointed out the elephant in the room. “He’ll get better now that you’re gone.” She stilled and met his hard stare, her glimmering eyes a mix of hope and fear.
“Did I do something to him?”
He gave a slight inclination of his head. She bit her lower lip and braced, waiting for him to speak.
“You slept with him Friday night, right?”
* * *
Brianna’s mind darted back to Friday night when her biggest worry had been whether she wanted to take her relationship with Jeffery to the next level. He was sweet and generous, and she’d been comfortable with him. Not in love but at ease, and they were like-minded on so many issues. She admired him because he helped a lot of needy people. But when he kissed her there was no spark.
Her gaze flashed to MacConnelly. The sparks were flying with him—even if she hadn’t touched him. Just one shower of sparks after another. Sexual, male, with an edge of danger she didn’t quite understand, Mac was one powerful source of energy. It pulsed from him like sound waves from a radio tower. Invisible, but she could feel them even from this distance and they lifted the hairs on her forearms.
