by Jenna Kernan
“I’m not. But I do read a great deal.”
“Soldier of Fortune?”
Her brow wrinkled, and then she realized he was joking and cast him a dazzling smile. He knew he was outmatched and retreated down the hall.
Back outside he discussed their situation with Johnny. Both agreed that the compound was the most defensible position available. Mac still wanted to keep her appearance secret, and he had no way to explain Johnny’s panty raid if that came to light.
Mac made suggestions; Johnny listened, giving his opinion about what to do with their uninvited guest. If more male vampires did follow her, they would have an opportunity to capture one and be heroes. The colonel would see that they were ready to return to combat duty, and that might get them both the hell out of this glorified prison. He was sick of being a fucking lab rat.
Johnny reminded him that they had already captured one.
“I’m not turning her over.”
Johnny glared and looked away.
“So I’m leaving you today. You sure?”
Johnny nodded, agreeing to do the training alone so Mac could quit early and watch over Bri. Mac felt pulled in two directions. Because Bri had now become his responsibility.
Chapter 9
The morning at the medical center stretched to afternoon before Mac and Johnny were finally dismissed. Mac paused some distance from their quarters as he smelled lilies where there were none. There were deeper fragrances, cinnamon, soap and the alluring scent of a female’s most secret places. He growled at the unwelcome flash of desire as his body reacted before his mind could even process what was happening.
“You scent her?” asked Mac.
His comrade nodded his head. He looked glum after spending an afternoon as a living target. Mac had wanted to leave him, and that was exactly why he hadn’t. Instead he’d stayed and watched Johnny suffer from the rounds that bounced off his hide like bullets off Superman’s chest and worried about Bri, alone in their quarters.
“Me, too. And I kept thinking about those lacy, silky things you stole and how they’d look stretched—”
Johnny sighed and Mac stopped talking. At least he could have a woman. Mac glanced from Johnny to the path leading to Bri.
“So if I can scent her and nothing else, I guess she’s all right. What do I cook for the vegetarian?”
They reached the courtyard and then the inner chambers that led to their living quarters to find Brianna standing in the kitchen, a glass of water poised at her mouth. Her skin glowed with good health and the turquoise tee and black yoga pants hugged her curves like nobody’s business. Part of the wardrobe Johnny had provided her, he realized. She lowered the glass and cast them a tentative smile.
“Welcome back, Mr. MacConnelly. Good evening, Mr. Lam,” she said and stopped to glance from one motionless male to the next. “Did I do something wrong?”
Johnny shook his head, but Mac thought he was smiling. Had he changed his mind about having her here?
“I would have cooked something, but I didn’t know when to expect you.”
Mac and Johnny managed to chase her out of their kitchen and got her parked on a stool when they cooked steaks and fries for them and macaroni and cheese for her. His gunner was grace in motion but clumsy as a cook, so Mac cooked and Johnny set the table and did KP.
Johnny pushed the salt and pepper closer to the second chair Mac had added and placed a paper napkin where Bri could reach it, folding it once. Then quickly drew back his hand. Now Mac stared at Johnny who gave him a casual shrug. He didn’t know his gunner knew how to use a napkin, let alone fold one. Johnny sat on a cushion on the ground and still reached the surface of their table. Mac slid two large steaks onto Johnny’s plate and then heaped on the French fries before making himself a similar plate.
Brianna took her seat and gave Johnny, seated adjacent to her, an anxious glance before returning her attention to Mac who carried over a bowl of macaroni and cheese for her to eat. Johnny remained motionless as a dog with a biscuit on his nose awaiting the command for release. Mac stood in confusion. He had never seen Johnny wait before a full plate of food. Was he waiting for their guest? He turned back to the stove to retrieve his portion.
Mac sat and stared at Johnny, who glanced at Brianna.
“This looks delicious.” She lifted her fork, grimaced and took the tiniest of bites, then winced.
“Something wrong with the grub?” asked Mac.
She startled and then poked at her pasta, making a show of taking a bite. “No, they’re delicious.” Her smile faded and she lay aside her fork. “I don’t have much of an appetite. I feel a little sick to my stomach.”
Mac looked at the metal fork and the aluminum bowl. Was that making her sick?
He took her portion and returned a moment later with a fresh helping on a paper plate. He offered her a plastic fork. She tried them and smiled.
“These taste so much better.”
“It’s the metal.”
She nodded. “Yes. I didn’t want to be a bother.”
An elephant trumpeting in the room would be less disruptive than having her seated at their table, but he managed a smile. His reward and punishment was that she reached out and squeezed his hand, right there beside his fork. The buzz of sexual energy started in his ears and plunged downward to the usual places. He glanced at Johnny who just gaped at him from over the fork full of meat he’d been about to swallow whole.
“Thank you for helping me,” she said.
Oh, he would have liked to do a lot more than help. He managed a civil response. “No problem.”
“But I need to get back to my life.”
Johnny’s fork paused again and he turned from Mac to her and then back to Mac. Did Johnny want him to cut her loose? He felt the tug of uncertainty as he realized he wasn’t letting her go regardless of what Johnny wanted and then felt the familiar kick of guilt, low and sharp in his gut. He lifted his brow at Johnny who looked up and to the left as he lifted his tufted brows. Johnny was deferring to him, thank God. Mac looked back to Bri’s lovely upturned face.
“You’re on their list now, Princess. They know your name and where you live.”
She tried to keep her chin up but he noticed a slight tremor there. “I won’t go home.”
“Or the hospital.”
Bri slumped. “But what about Jeffery?”
“That life is over, sweetheart. Gone for good and all.”
Mac found himself curious about a man who could keep the likes of Bri without gaining her love, for truthfully, that was just what he wanted. Sex. No strings. That was the perfect relationship. Besides, you didn’t bring a vampire home to meet the folks.
“Will they hurt him?” she asked.
“Doubtful. He doesn’t know where you are, so they have no business with him. They might stake out the hospital. Hoping you’ll turn up. You aren’t going to.”
Johnny resumed eating like a teenager anxious to get away from his arguing parents.
“Right now the authorities are searching for you. Eventually you’ll be added to a list, one of many young women who’ve vanished and were never found.”
She blinked at him and for a moment neither spoke.
“I don’t want to disappear,” she finally said.
“You don’t have much choice. The vampires are searching. And they won’t give up. You either join them or you run and hide. There’s no middle ground. The males are stronger and faster, and so the females do what they say. As far as we know, none of the female soul...” His words dropped off, but she knew he was about to say soul suckers. “What did you call them?”
“Leanan Sidhe. But those are fairies. Full fairies like my mom is supposed to be. I’m half human.”
“Maybe all the others are half human, too. Maybe all vampires
are descended from fairies.”
“From Leanan Sidhe, you mean. Most fairies can’t kill people. Except for the Banshee, of course.”
He stilled, his gaze flicking to Johnny who lowered his fork to his empty plate and shrugged.
Mac returned his focus to Brianna. “What the hell is a Band-She?”
“It’s a fairy that kills by touch. To the heart for death. To the head for madness. It’s just folklore. One of the stories my nana told me. A way to explain mental illness, I suppose.”
“Or those fucking things are real, too.”
Johnny threw up his arms.
“What?”
He spelled out the curse word Mac had used.
“Oh for Christ’s...” He met Johnny’s scowl and let his words trail off. “What? I can’t swear now?”
Johnny inclined his head toward Brianna. Apparently Johnny didn’t swear in front of ladies, even ones with powers that could shrivel a man’s heart like a prune.
“Well I never heard of those things, but I suppose werewolves can kill them, too.”
She drew in a breath and looked at him as if he were her knight in shining armor. Mac held her gaze, wanting that to be the case so much that it hurt.
“How?” she whispered.
“By hunting and killing them, like we hunted ECs.”
“I don’t understand.” she said.
“Enemy combatants.”
She didn’t raise any objections. Seemed killing farm animals and killing vampires did not fall into the same class for her, which was fine with Mac. He could hear her blood thumping through her veins as she sat perfectly still. Bri lifted a hand to her throat and spoke in a whisper. “Go on.”
“Bullets don’t kill vampires because they heal too damned fast. If you get lucky and hit one, the holes just heal up. You can spike them with silver, but the minute that silver is removed, zip-zap, they’re whole again. Decapitation works, if you use a silver sword and you are damned quick. But if a werewolf tears out their throat or rips open a major artery, it doesn’t heal and they bleed out.”
“I think iron is more damaging than silver,” she said. “It bothers me much more.”
Why would she tell him her weakness? Unless it was because it was also the weakness of her enemies. Was she beginning to trust him? He hoped so.
“That’s helpful, thanks.”
She cast him a wary smile and then glanced to Johnny whose fixed stare was often unnerving.
“So that’s what you and Johnny do? You are training to kill vampires?” She was clutching her throat as she waited for the answer.
Johnny held her gaze and nodded.
“That’s terrible.”
“You’d rather have them out there assassinating world leaders? Because they’re killers, Bri. Drink blood, collect millions and kill human targets.”
“But they can’t come out in the daylight.”
He shook his head. “Myth. Most of the stuff out there is wrong. Except the silver part. It’s not the cross that deters, its the silver, and if you have a gold crucifix you are shit out of luck. They tolerate gold, I think.” He waited for confirmation.
She nodded. “Pure gold, yes.”
“Holy water doesn’t work. Same for wooden spikes, sunshine, holy ground and coffins. And they don’t need to travel with dirt. That’s just weird. They mostly go out at night because they are butt-ugly and they can see so much better than humans in the dark.”
She shivered, recalling the one she had seen. “That makes a lot of sense. But they have white eyes, like a blind man.”
“And purplish skin mostly. It is pinkish after they feed.”
Bri pushed her cold meal about with her plastic fork. Finally she lifted her head to meet Mac’s stare.
“I don’t want to endanger either of you. This is my problem.”
Mac grinned and met Johnny’s eye. “We’re Marines, Vittori. Problems are what we do.”
“I don’t want you to have to face those things because of me.”
“That’s not up to you. You might not understand this, Princess. Marines don’t just kill things. We protect things. Roads. Towns, positions. Lines in the damned sand. Convoys, cities, countries and people. And as of today, we also protect one female vampire.”
“I’ve never needed protecting before.”
“You’ve been protected your entire life. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
Her face went pale as that arrow struck home.
“You needed it then and you sure as hell need it now.”
Her eyes glittered with tears. “My nana was human and she knew, and still she kept me safe.”
“She loved you.”
Bri nodded, the tears slipping in silver trails down her pale cheeks.
Johnny started signing. Bri watched and Mac put the letters together.
“What is he saying?”
“He’s reminding me that you’re one of them. But I’ll protect her as long as I can.” This last part he directed at Johnny who then glared at Bri. Did he have to protect her from Johnny as well? He didn’t want to have to choose.
* * *
That night Mac and Johnny ran as usual, only they had a purpose—search for sign of intrusion by male vampires. Mac’s needs had changed when he had. He needed more food and less sleep, and he needed to run. That was one of the reasons he had to get Johnny out of lockup at the medical facility. He worried that his gunner’s trip off grounds yesterday was going to bite them both in their big hairy asses.
After the moon rose they returned to the compound where he could hear Bri’s breathing. He took first watch and Johnny relieved him three hours later.
It was a quiet night, except for his thoughts, which kept creeping down the hallway to his bedroom where Bri slept alone. He woke the instant she rose from his bed, hearing her breathing change and the whisper of sheets as she slipped to the floor and crossed on bare feet to the bathroom that had been installed for him. A moment later the shower spray began.
He imagined her bright red hair, now wet and turning a deep shade of auburn while a mass of ringlets danced about her head. Her face would be covered with beaded droplets that would run down her bare shoulder in rivulets. He released his breath into the sofa pillow and crept into his room, moving silently to the bed where he leaned down and inhaled her scent on the sheets. The shower ceased and Mac retreated out of doors to find Johnny sitting watch.
“You still okay with this?”
Johnny gave a reluctant sigh and then a slow nod. Not enthusiastic but he’d take it.
“Thanks, Lam. I want you to know that I still have your back. Nothing has changed there.”
His gunner gave his shoulder a quick squeeze then headed inside. They had breakfast before Bri arrived.
“Do you think she’ll eat oatmeal?” asked Mac.
Johnny shrugged and Mac heated the water. He added raisins and had the gooey mess ready when she appeared, scrubbed and dressed in tight jeans and a tighter T-shirt. Mac gawked and then glared at Johnny, who grimaced and then covered his eyes.
“Good morning,” she piped.
Her hair was indeed a deep auburn when wet, just as he had imagined. But her skin was now glowing pink and fresh as dew.
“I made oatmeal,” he said, extending a bowl.
“I love oatmeal.” She grinned as she accepted it and paused there, staring up at him as her smile faded and the buzz of sexual energy began again between them.
Mac needed her to get away from him, because he was contemplating marching her back down the hall to that bed. Instead he cleared his throat. “Sugar’s on the table.”
Mac’s phone roared like a Harley motorcycle. It was the ring tone he’d chosen for his commanding officer, Colonel Lewis, and both Johnny and Mac
jumped every time they heard it.
Lewis had been in charge of his squad in Afghanistan. The colonel had surprised Mac by leaving his combat assignment to follow him and Johnny to the Marine Mountain Training Center. It showed the kind of concern for his men that Mac had stopped expecting from rear-echelon motherfuckers. Johnny still didn’t like Lewis, but he never said why. Just the mention of Lewis made Johnny’s hackles lift.
Mac took the call and the order for him to report ASAP.
Mac hesitated before leaving Brianna with Johnny. But he couldn’t bring her with him, and they both knew he had to report.
“You’ll be all right?” he asked Johnny.
His gunner took his sweet time nodding his acceptance of his new position as babysitter and showed his fangs as a measure of his displeasure.
“Thanks,” said Mac.
Mac again felt that pull to be in two places at once, and Bri’s assurance that she would be fine did nothing to relieve his mind.
He left Bri reluctantly, lingering for one long look and to give final instructions to stay inside to keep her from revealing herself to the newly repaired Marine Corp surveillance cameras and to trust Johnny if anything happened. All the way to the facility he second-guessed his decision to leave her. Damn, he knew this would blow up in their faces. Only question was when.
At HQ, he reported to his commander’s office and to his assistant, who pressed the intercom button at his appearance. He paced, but that made his agitation too obvious. So obvious even an officer might notice it so he stopped, fixing his feet to the floor as if glued there.
Mac didn’t like the uncertainty swimming around in his belly like a hungry shark. He knew it was his duty to tell the colonel about Bri. But he knew what would happen if they found her. The possibilities kept him mute. When had he started picking and choosing which orders to take?
Colonel Lewis’s assistant opened the door and then stepped aside. Mac removed his hat and entered. He stood at attention, holding is salute.
“Staff Sergeant MacConnelly, sir,” announced the colonel’s aide.
Lewis stood behind Captain Steward, staring at the computer monitor over the computer tech’s shoulder. He glanced up at Mac, frowned and snapped a quick salute. Mac dropped his arm to his side before the colonel’s index finger had left his forehead.
