by Dee Carney
Bast rode the smooth descent of the plane, letting the force sway his body to and from Alice. He held on to her as if she were his last chance for living. That she clung to him with insistent hands ignited his already-rising lust.
Pulling away took the strength of titans.
“When I return,” he said, breathless, need strangling him, “you and I will sit down and talk some more. For now, stay safe and wait for me.”
“I will.” A whisper of promise.
* * *
Every time she paused, the seductive weight of Sebastian’s parting kiss burdened her mind. A distraction she could ill afford. An hour wasn’t much time to make significant changes in the genealogy chart, but she intended to make a lasting impression upon her employer.
His family history impressed the hell out of her, the dates an impossibility to her mind. That he’d lived for four hundred years baffled her and more than once she caught herself imagining what it must have been like. Hell, twenty years ago the iPod didn’t exist. What about the emergence of the automobile, man’s first trip to the moon and so many other wonders of technology—how did they affect Sebastian who’d have seen their rise and, sometimes, their fall?
“Ma’am, may I get you something from the galley?”
She smiled at Pope, at his quiet approach. He’d remained a silent watcher while she worked, but she felt his presence near the rear of the plane. “Thank you, no.” A glance at his watch. “Se...Bast will be back any minute, right?”
“He’s a little overdue actually. I expect the meeting ran long.”
A sudden concern for Sebastian’s health crept over her. What if he’d fallen ill again? Alice shook away the fear. If he did, he’d simply get help from his associates. They couldn’t all be like Cicero.
Still...
“I think I’ll go stretch my legs and wait outside.” When she watched Sebastian’s approach, the rising concern would dissipate. She was sure of it. “I won’t leave sight of the plane.”
“Would you like me to wait with you?”
“No, not necessary.” For all his politeness, hanging out with someone who was probably another vampire didn’t sit well with her.
“Yes, ma’am. Call if you need anything at all.”
Without looking, she knew Pope watched her make her way down the aisle and to the exit. They’d landed on a well-lit runway, and climbing down the steps took no effort at all. As she reached the bottom, Alice wrapped her arms around her torso.
Only three hours north, but the cooler South Carolina temperature slapped her. Across the runway, pine trees bowed to the brisk wind pushing their tips over. And somehow the air just smelled different up here. Cleaner.
Dozens of fireflies seemed to wink into existence before changing their minds and disappearing again. With the beauty of the growing moon sharing a silvery gleam, the world looked silently beautiful. Grown so used to city life, Alice had forgotten what being out in nature could be like.
She turned to the plane, and comforted with the knowledge she could see into it—and by assumption, Pope could see out and her—she dared move a little farther away. Just a little distance. There were a few cars parked near a building, but none looked like anything Sebastian might own. She hadn’t thought to watch him leave earlier and didn’t know what mode of transportation he might be using. Hell, for all she knew, the vampire bat theory still might hold water.
Why hadn’t he taken her to his meeting? If he was out there suffering and unable to get to her for help, she was going to be seriously pissed. Odd that she felt some sort of responsibility for him, but it remained. The fact that she wanted to spend hours in his arms, locked into one of his toe-curling kisses didn’t make it hard to want to be with him.
Alice kept walking, letting nature court her senses. She glanced back, realized there was no way she couldn’t be spotted from the plane and let her guard drop just a bit. Any person who approached would be visible from any direction they took. With the airplane’s engines turned off, the sound of a car would be an intrusion to all this quiet.
There was no danger here. Just the imaginings of an overactive mind that whispered about vampires and what they could do to silly little girls who allowed themselves to be bitten.
When the hair began to rise on the back of her neck, she went still, however. Nothing seemed amiss, no person or thing obviously out of place. But the sense of unease remained, as if another presence had managed to sneak up on her despite her wariness. She turned toward the plane, trying not to look as frantic as she suddenly felt.
It was as if one of Richard’s friends was stalking her now. She didn’t have to see or hear him to know the truth of it. How she’d been found way out here didn’t make sense, but she knew that feeling well.
Each step seemed to take longer than the last, none of them bringing her close enough to the plane for her comfort. Later, she might decide she’d indeed been silly. This sudden rush of panic and being stalked. With the newfound knowledge that some of the things that go bump in the night do exist, better silly than dead, however.
The low sound of thunder too close to have come from the sky made her stop in her tracks. Heart roaring, Alice struggled to pinpoint where it could have come from. The trees, maybe?
Not the trees.
Near the plane. Somehow the noise came too close from the sanctuary she sought. The not-thunder rumbled again, sending a riot of goose bumps across her crawling skin. Low. Menacing. All animal.
Throat drying, she stared into glowing eyes, her mind screaming at her to do only one thing. Run.
* * *
Goddamned lycans.
Bast couldn’t have been any more pissed. He pressed down on the accelerator, letting the racing car carry away some of his frustration.
They’d been the ones to ask for the meeting and not one of them had the fucking balls to show. He’d waited there for the full hour, even longer, never letting his mounting impatience show in his body language. Had they discovered him in an agitated state, who knew if someone would take exception to it.
And for what? Nothing.
He’d wasted two hours, plus an upcoming additional hour of flying time to be here. Time he could have utilized researching this illness that he’d managed to somehow keep at bay for the night. Hell, even a few hours with his men would have been more useful, going over some of the latest recon or reviewing plans for the Council’s foray into the public. Maybe he should have sent one of them in to meet the werewolves. Then it would have been their time wasted and not his.
But at least Alice waited for him now. Alice of the blue eyes and gentle nature. Whose kisses fueled him until he was consumed by her.
He hoped she had better luck with tracing his roots. So very different from the other born vampires. He’d aroused their suspicion from the moment he’d proven he could walk in the sunlight. Just like one of the vampires who had been turned—or “bred”; very unlike a born vampire. So far he hadn’t found a weakness by straddling the two races, but he was still young. That his birth had been witnessed by others saved him from being exterminated as an abomination. But if he gave them one excuse—just one little error in judgment—that proved he was defective, that his birth should never have been...
The head beams of the car scanned over a large shape, drawing Bast’s attention. It had been too quick to be useful, but he leaned forward, intent on trying to find it again. Whatever it was avoided the lights of the air strip, choosing instead to stalk in s
hadow near the plane.
Too damned close to the plane.
Chapter Eleven
Vampires lived with rules about human interaction. Lycans did not. He wanted to get to her now. Vampire relations with lycans were tenuous at best. If they went after her for some reason, Bast couldn’t say he wouldn’t let it be an impetus for shattering the reluctant relationship. Acid churned in his stomach, and with a sinking heart, Bast recognized the familiar feeling. The one that began as a slow simmer and would soon rage until it was an uncontrollable fire within him. He didn’t have time for this shit.
Gunning the engine, he reveled in its roar as the car charged toward the beast. It might have been a large dog or just an oversized, run-of-the-mill wolf, but he couldn’t take chances. He wanted it to flee, to get away from the plane. If it did, reacting as any normal animal would, the surging adrenaline running rampant in his veins would ease, his racing heart return to normal. But it didn’t, turning to look at him, ignoring the threat of the approaching car because it knew there was something better for it than a thousand pounds of steel. It had intelligence beyond animal keenness.
This was no ordinary wolf. The car hadn’t stopped before Bast jumped out, Glock in hand. Against another vampire, he’d need ash wood, but with these fuckers? A silver-tipped bullet would do the job quite well.
A burst of perspiration erupted on his brow, the heat in his belly rising. Swirling inside him until it filled every limb. But for the first time, Bast reveled in the heat. In the power that swelled inside him.
It was the same affliction from before, yet not. This time, he didn’t feel as if the conflagration would bring him down. Instead, it buoyed him.
“Alice!” His shout sounded strangled, even to his own ears. Fury twisted the sound in his throat until it was a whip against the night air.
The beast swung its ugly head toward him, lips snarling. Yellowed teeth bared. Now that he was next to it, he realized it stood the size of a small pickup.
“Sebastian.” A desperate whisper. Somewhere beyond the lycan.
“Stay where you are,” Bast ordered. Before he could shoot at the werewolf, he wanted to be certain of her position. Daring to take his gaze away from the brute for a split second, he peered beyond it. The blazing lights of the runway should have been enough, his vision should have helped him, but Bast had to focus to find her.
From a distance, he normally could detect distinct shapes. Distinguish between blond hair or brown. Heightened vampire vision ensured he knew if someone wore a round-neck collar or one with a vee. A person’s facial characteristics could be separated from another’s.
But now—somehow—as he looked for Alice, the world changed. The area became sun-brightened, light flooding it until there were no more shadows. Until he almost squinted from the harshness of it. Bast seemed to pull the light into himself, and what were once shades of gray became distinct reds and yellows. Black separated from brown.
His gaze skimmed over the lycan, noting the wire-stiff hairs. Each individual one was black at the roots, the strands blending to shades of auburn. Bands of other colors dripped down its heaving sides. On any other night, he might have studied the creature more, to try and figure out why the sunlight had come out on such a beautiful night, but right now Bast’s primary concern was one female he’d pledged his life to.
The heat surrounded him. Filled him. Nourished him.
Alice’s unique scent called to Bast, and between it and the steady thump of her heartbeat, he triangulated her position. There, just beyond the beast’s right shoulder, eyes prettier than a field of bluebonnets peered out. Her attention darted between him and the lycan, and the moon highlighted her fear within the sea of blue.
With a steady hand, he pointed the Glock at the wolf, targeting the yellow razors of teeth. A gleaming row of ferocity. Alice shifted her head, and Bast jerked the gun up. Aiming at the slow rise and fall of a barrel-like chest, he tried to get a better shot.
“Move, princess,” he muttered. Just another inch or two. Enough so the bullet wouldn’t rip through the lycan’s chest cavity and burrow directly into her.
Crawling forward, the werewolf snarled at Bast. It whipped its large head from Bast to Alice, then back to Bast. It stood paralyzed with indecision, seemingly wanting its original weaker prey but recognizing the danger it faced in the armed vampire.
Bast kept tracking the damned thing, waiting for the right opportunity. The wolf raised its muzzle, staring Bast down with a swirling mix of gold and brown in its feral eyes before it made a low sound in its throat. Instead of the warning Bast expected, the wolf’s low keening struck him as if the very sound scraped against raw nerves.
An answering howl, fast on the heels of the lycan’s whimper, shot out of the night air. Somewhere beyond the line of trees bordering the airfield. Jaw tightening, Bast waited for the next howl and the one following.
So here were the werewolves he was supposed to meet. Not quite their original chosen destination. Instead of letting him come to them, into their hold, they’d met him and his charge.
Fuck them.
Whirling quickly, he squeezed the trigger in the direction of the trees. Hoped for a distraught yelp. Wasn’t surprised when he didn’t get one.
He did study their bulk in the not-sunlight, still shining bright, and managed to count six before returning his attention to the threat standing between him and Alice.
“That thing touches her, and every one of you dies tonight,” he shouted. Movement to the left. From the direction of the plane. “And I promise on my life, it won’t be quick.”
“I’ve got your back, boss,” Pope yelled.
It would be a help, especially if the pilot was armed and ready as well. They were both trained soldiers, ready to defend themselves against their kind’s current threat. Whether or not either man had seen action in their lives couldn’t be helped, but really Bast wanted nothing more for them to point their guns in the right direction and fire. Even a single second of not having to track six lycans would help him focus on the important one. The one standing in front of Alice.
Heat licked along tense muscles. It massaged itself into his arms, coiling around his torso until it stretched down the lengths of his thighs. When it finally bottomed out, having no place else to spread, Bast jerked upright as it rushed up his body again.
He didn’t need this. Not now.
But the heat ignored his silent plea, pushing at his back as if determined to create an exit for the furnace within if he wouldn’t give it a place to escape. Sweat rivulets clung to his brows, threatening to dribble into his eyes, drop by stinging drop. He blinked once. Twice. A quick toss of his head to fling the distractions away.
Movement from the trees.
“Vampire,” a male voice called.
A figure approached, walking not with boldness nor stealth, but with a casual indifference that pissed off Bast. His nudity didn’t bother Bast; the knowledge of what lycans could and couldn’t do during a physical shift wasn’t news. He just wished he’d had an opportunity to explain some of it to Alice, who couldn’t be understanding any of this.
“Lower your weapon,” the man continued. “We’re not here to take you out. If we were, you’d be dead already.”
As fucking if. His gun hand didn’t waver.
“Let her come to me. Right by my side. Then we talk.” He kept his eyes on Alice. “You asked for this meeting, Locke, and this is how you treat me and my guest?”
“We were detained,” Locke answered. “I’d hoped to catch you up here. And it seems we have.”
No one so much as twitched, which didn’t fill Bast with good feelings.
“Tell your dog to move,” he growled. “The woman goes safely into the plane, and then the eight of us can figure out who’s got the biggest dick.”
The werewolf growled deep in its throat, a trail of saliva spilling from black lips.
Locke chuckled. “Wilde doesn’t seem to like that idea. But if you insist on training your gun on him while I deliver my message, I’ll allow it, as I’ll be brief. That being said, she stays where she is for now.”
“You don’t need her.”
“You’re right, but I’ll take whatever leverage is handed me.” A tuft of hair rifled over Locke’s smooth shoulders, disappearing almost as quickly as it had arisen. A sign that Locke was about to change into his furry self, maybe.
Bast chanced a quick glance at the sky, despite knowing the full moon was still a week away. Still...were the fuckers in control of their shifts? They were supposed to be. Then again, creatures of the night were supposed to be just figments of imagination.
“Make it fast,” Bast ordered. Pulses of heat were making it difficult to keep the gun steady. The flesh of his back crawled over his bones, and he didn’t know how much longer he could stand it.
“Like I said, my message is short. Tell the vampire Council to withdraw. We’re not your enemy.” The rest of his message came through his hardened stare. But we can be.
