by Zoe Forward
“I had a run-in with Hsu-Li when I was leaving the wedding. He knifed me. Then, I had an altercation with some wolves, and I lost my cell phone.”
Instantly, Ambrose was at her side. His face a filled with a concern that matched his silky tone. “Are you injured, darling?”
“I’m fine now. Needed to sleep a bit after Hsu-Li knifed me.”
“He stabbed you? Whyever would he do that?”
“Seems Dominic wanted me to stay the other evening and not go home. When I declined it got ugly.”
“I’ll make him pay appropriately for hurting what is no longer his to hurt. About the wolves…what do they want from you?” His tone was as smooth as an overmixed milkshake.
She forced a smile, which was easy after years of faking it for Dominic. “I still don’t know. I didn’t wait around to find out. I found an escape and took it.”
She tried to catch his thoughts, which were nothing but a jumble of hazy sexual images of...him and Lexan? He lusted after Lexan? She supposed it made sense. Who wouldn’t?
Ambrose put his arm around her and pulled her close. She fought her instinct to shrink away. He whispered, “Where’s Lexan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see him again?”
She swallowed when his pupils dilated. That usually meant badness.
“Leave,” Ambrose ordered the other vamp.
The other vamp nodded and departed so silently that she was surprised between one blink and the next to find the guy missing.
“I think you did see him. Where are they?”
“I already said I don’t know.”
“Darling, I think you do know. I love a good game of getting information out you.” Ambrose licked her neck. She caught the heavy arousal in his mind, even if it wasn’t her image foremost in his brain. Her stomach cramped. She ordered her body, Don’t struggle. Must avoid that mind merge instant-replay thing.
Everything about him—his odor, his heat, and the thought of him touching her—made her stomach lurch.
Ambrose’s finger touched the neckline V of her scrubs. She found herself pinned to the kitchen countertop with the scrubs pulled tight against her neck to reveal her shoulder. Lexan’s mark was now front and center.
“What. The. Hell?” Ambrose snapped.
“My life got complicated last night. We should talk about this. I could really use some advice on how to get rid of that thing.”
“There’ll be no talking, and you better hope for your sake that if Lexan bit you, he forced you.” This is perfect.
Perfect for what?
Ambrose’s hands moved toward her forehead. She couldn’t allow him privy to anything that had gone on in the past twelve hours. She squirmed away from him, earning her a second slam against the counter.
Sirens screeched. Disoriented she tried to make sense of the noise, finally realizing it was the perimeter alarm.
With an ear-splitting shatter, two kitchen windows exploded inward. Cloudy gas filled the room. Her nostrils burned. She coughed to breathe.
Two small objects hit the floor and rolled. The air exploded in brilliant light and eardrum-popping bangs.
Ambrose fell to the floor, wailing.
A hulking dark-clad figure with a gas mask exploded through the back door into the kitchen, threw her over his shoulder and ran. Once her ear and eye numbness passed, the jarring of the guy’s running jolted her mind into gear. No denying the scent. He was wolf. Vaguely familiar wolf.
“Let go.” She pummeled his back, a ridiculously impotent move. She was done with being kidnapped.
Feeling around for something vulnerable on the guy, she found his tactical vest opened beneath his armpit. She counted to three in beat with his strides. On three, she swung her body. And struck, impaling her canines deep into his flesh.
One proud but stunned moment later, she realized she was rolling on the ground. Free. The wolf had a hand on his side, cursing, and then spoke rapidly in a foreign language while pressing his left ear. Perhaps, he had a communication device in his ear.
She ran. Her mind swept the area, catching thoughts. There were a lot of pissed vamps and a couple of werewolves, with everyone focused on her.
Her only light was the moon. Her body responded to the luminous fullness of the glowing object on an elemental level. She felt muscles stretching. Her left hand burned.
Her hand was covered in fur. It was a paw. She fell to her knees, screaming.
Chapter Sixteen
“Turn off the sirens.” Lexan overheard Ambrose’s order from just outside the kitchen, next to the window TC had broken.
Seconds later, the screeching stopped.
Lexan should leave, but he needed to know Ambrose’s next step. The vamp was up to something.
Ambrose yelled, “Was it wolves?”
One of his bulky guards replied, “Likely. They were well trained.”
Lexan ducked behind a large ornamental bush when two vamps came walking around the house, guns out. They examined the broken window and stalked away. He moved back to the window.
“I want Lexan. Alive, if possible.” Ambrose whipped out a cell phone, scrolled through several screens, and then put it to his ear. “It’s Ambrose DiFalco. We found Vee. I was about to phone you so you wouldn’t worry, but my house was attacked. Wolves took her before, and now they have her again. Why do you think they want her so much that they’d attack my house? Lexan Dimitrov in particular?”
He paused for a few moments. “My men picked her up about an hour and a half ago. She had just escaped from the wolves. I tell you, Dominic, she was a real mess. One of them bit her. As in marked her. They usually only do that with their mates. I don’t know what the hell it means in this case.”
Ambrose listened for a few seconds. He tapped his fingernails on his marble kitchen countertop. “Give me an hour and I’ll locate them. I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“Sir, the girl is going into a juvie shift panic.” TC’s voice came through the communicator in Lexan’s ear.
Lexan ran, finding TC within seconds less than a quarter mile away. “I’m right here.”
TC jumped and whirled with his knife ready. “You’re a scary bastard sometimes, sir.”
Lexan moved toward her slowly. “Look at me, Vee.”
She was zoned into her panic. Her breaths came in shallow pants. Bloody furrows tracked up her arm where she raked at the aberrant paw as if dismembering herself would stop the shift.
Lexan locked both her arms behind her back with one of his hands and gripped her chin with his other to force eye contact. The terror and vulnerability reflecting back at him squeezed his chest. “Stop hurting yourself. It won’t help.”
“I am not a wolf.”
“We can argue the semantics of that later. Right now, you can’t go all fur on me.” Not with DiFalco’s guys about to be on top of us.
“Make it stop.” She struggled wildly in his grip to resume her frantic scratching at the anomalous hand.
Lexan pulled her tight to him and pressed his lips to hers. At first she tensed, but within seconds her lips parted, allowing him full access. Violent need gripped him. His plan had been distraction only. Now he felt himself slipping, losing his edge.
His tongue swept her mouth. She melted into him. He released her hands and let the pad of his forefinger drift beneath the scrub top to gently rub his mark. He smiled against her lips at the reactive tremor that ricocheted through her body. Her fingers gripped his back, pulling him tighter to her. Her canines drew blood from his lower lip. The act wasn’t accidental. When the metallic taste of blood filled both their mouths, she groaned.
She pulled away from his mouth and kissed a path to his neck. He breathed an emotional sigh of relief, ready for her strike. Needing it. He’d been born to crave this woman.
Fire streaked through his body as her lips teased his skin on the path toward his jugular, jolting him like mini-lightning strikes. His heart thudded rapidly in anticipation o
f her piercing kiss and subsequent euphoria. He wanted those teeth in his skin again…deep in his neck. He wanted her to suck at him, to take her fill and live off him.
Vee continued to nibble around his neck. His heart rate escalated as if he was in the middle of a workout.
A voice cleared loudly behind them. “Uh, sir…as fascinating as this is rapidly becoming, we’re about to be face-to-face with about ten pissed-off vamps. Fifteen seconds. I need your permission to kill this time.”
Like a blast of cold water, they jumped away from each other. But Lexan pulled her back into him with a firm band around her waist. He couldn’t risk her running again.
“You have permission.” He then addressed her in a gentle tone. “Time to get out of here.”
She rotated her now normal hand, streaked with bloody scratches, and whispered, “Thank you.”
Her small grateful smile was enough to make him almost forget the escalating disaster around them. And the political implications of him attacking Lexan to steal Vee back.
He grabbed her hand and sprinted, following TC through the dark forest.
Sensing danger in front instead of behind, he halted. He telepathically ordered TC to stop. In his peripheral, he saw TC dive for the cover of a large oak with knives ready.
“What’s wrong?” Vee asked.
“Shhh. Stay behind me. No sudden moves. Back up.” He pushed her behind him while backing them up slowly into the shadows, not that shadows would provide any sort of impediment to the sharp vision of a trained vampire.
In his communicator, TC said, “One on my left. Got him. One on your right.”
“Stay here.” Lexan pressed a knife into her hands. “Kill anything that’s not me.”
Lexan stalked through the woods, cringing when he crunched a dry leaf. He picked up the whisper of movement to his right. With a pivot, he prepared for attack. A vamp leaped at him, knife in hand ready to tear him to shreds. Old school. For a moment, he basked in the pleasure of a physical fight without guns. He even respected this warrior.
Lexan dodged. No time to prolong and enjoy the battle, though. Not with Vee relatively unprotected. “Leave now and I won’t pursue you.”
The vamp was fast as he parried and thrust at him, dancing around with his serrated silver blade. “Scared, wolf? You should be.”
Lexan was faster. “If you choose death, then so be it.” He swiped across the vamp’s wrist. The vamp’s knife fell.
Lexan struck lightning fast, slicing across the vamp’s neck and then driving his knife deep into his chest. He wondered if the body would corrode to ash in this dense forest, but cared not to ensure placement of the body where sunlight would hit it.
He returned to Vee, catching her hand before her knife hit its target, his chest. “It’s me.”
Warning flared in his mind. Another vamp. The vamp’s distinctive scent permeated his nostrils with a strong chaser smell of arousal and anger. He locked onto the threat.
Thirty yards away, Ambrose smiled. He targeted Lexan with a suppressed 9mm. Would he be crazy enough to confirm open warfare? This act would be considered way more than a little skirmish as part of the Stateside war.
Ambrose fired. Lexan jumped left, pulling Vee with him, and flung his knife toward Ambrose into a perfect mid-chest hit. The knife hit simultaneously with Ambrose’s second shot. Pain exploded in Lexan’s thigh.
Adrenaline surged. The official peace was over. Now they could finally deal with the virus openly. And lay down the payback the vamps deserved.
He’d deal with it later.
His priority was to get Vee out of here. Ambrose couldn’t get her back.
Within seconds, Ambrose was surrounded by his guards. His knife’s path hadn’t been a death hit. More of a slow-down hit. He and Ambrose would have their moment. Not tonight.
“Follow me,” Lexan ordered, ignoring the pain in his thigh.
A quarter-mile away, he yanked open the door of a dark-colored SUV. Vee hopped in.
“Get us out of here, Eric,” he ordered as he fell onto the backseat floor. TC jumped into the passenger front seat, pulled the door closed. The car squealed on the gravel as it kicked into gear.
TC said, “Our guys are on their way behind us.”
Lexan pulled himself up onto the seat and gripped his thigh, emitting a low curse.
“Oh, shit,” said TC. He leapt into action, climbing over the center console.
TC removed his belt from around his waist and wound it tightly around Lexan’s upper thigh. Deftly, he cut Lexan’s pants up to the wound. “One of those fuckers got him. It’s liquid silver. A death hit.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You’re shot?” Vee’s head buzzed. She concentrated on her breaths, trying to slow them down, but the buzzing in her head continued.
Something inside her twisted up hard at the thought of Lexan dying. Doctor mode kicked in, locking down all emotion.
Vee leaned around TC to look, but TC shifted, blocking her.
“Damn it. You got zinged with a liquid silver bullet in the femoral. You ran on this?” TC pulled his finger away and wiped blood off on the back of the front seat.
Her heart raced. She managed to whisper, “Let me see.”
“What’s the point? It’s right into the artery, which has already pumped this shit everywhere. No one can make this magically disappear,” TC said.
“I expected it was something like that,” Lexan murmured.
“Was it intentional?” Eric asked from the front seat.
“Ambrose meant to do it.” Lexan locked gazes with Eric in the rearview mirror.
“Next time I see him, he’s dead. They’re all dead.” Eric slapped a hand against the steering wheel. “What’s your order, sir?”
Vee shouldered in front of TC, which was like moving a stubborn Mastiff who was barely keeping his aggression in check.
Lexan’s eyes were shut tight, his head thrown back.
TC tried to pull her away from him. The buzzing in her brain worsened. A low animal growl came from her throat.
Lexan’s eyes popped open. “Stop.”
TC and she froze at the order, neither sure to whom he spoke.
Lexan grasped her chin. “Vee, look me in the eyes.”
She met his gaze.
“Your pupils are dilating and contracting. The wolf wants out, but you can’t shift right now. When it happens, you’ll need help…probably blood. I can’t let you have blood right now. You are going to get control.”
“I’m fine. I’m not turning into a freaking dog.” She glared at TC, who’d released her but looked as if he was about to lean in and grab her again. “Do you see another doctor around here?”
“Look all you want, Vee.” Lexan waved at his exposed thigh.
She cast TC a warning glare, then probed around the bullet’s entry point. The rich smell of Lexan’s blood had her canines elongating. The buzzing in her brain drowned out all ambient sounds. A part of her wanted to claw her way out of this SUV and run free. The other half of her wanted to sink her teeth into Lexan’s oozing thigh and drink until she was drunk on his taste.
Lexan grabbed her chin again and forced eye contact. “I need Dr. Scarpa right now.”
“I’m good.” She yanked out of his grasp, wondering if she really was in control.
She used the cut areas of his pant leg to dab at blood and fought the powerful compulsion to lick the area clean. There wasn’t much to see other than a pinpoint hole and some fresh bruising. “You feel any silver reaction?”
“A bit.” A wave of pain slammed into her mind.
She gripped her forehead with a gasp. “That’s more than a bit.”
“Burns some.” Lexan threw his head back against the seat.
“That’s enough, Doc. Move away from him. I’m not entirely sure of your motive.” TC put a hand her shoulders.
Vee whirled and grabbed TC’s tactical vest to pull him close with a strength that surprised both of them. “You think I want
to hurt him? I already fixed him up once, even if Eric did blackmail me into it. Looks like right now all I have to do is sit back and he’s going to die on his own.”
“I don’t know what you’ve done to him. He’s not been acting like himself since you entered the picture.”
“I entered the picture? As if you guys gave me a choice about being in your picture?”
“Let go.” TC twisted her wrist until she released his vest.
She didn’t move from her post beside Lexan. She whispered, “Please, don’t die.”
“Our life has turned into a fucking nightmare,” TC muttered.
Vee faced TC. “Your life’s a nightmare? My father, who’s not my biological father, and my psychotic fiancé have decided to force conception on me with the treatment, which you all know has about a 50 to 60 percent death rate for a normal vamp. I’ve got a hereditary catastrophe, which might make my odds much worse. Although I’ve avoided it in the past, Ambrose would probably bite me at some point during the process since the two of us would have to get it on a whole lot, which might be fatal to him. Do I want him to bite me under any circumstance?” She paused to glance at Lexan, who now sat upright, scowling. “Of course I don’t want him to bite me. And, I think we just started World War III.”
TC stared at her in stunned silence.
Eric snorted out a laugh. “I thought my life was messed up.”
TC smirked. “I can’t wait to finally be able to fight the leeches in the open.”
“Doesn’t biting and sex go hand in hand? How’d you avoid that with Ambrose so far?” Eric asked.
She squirmed at the awkward question.
Lexan’s gaze scorched into her as if he wouldn’t survive until she and Lexan did just that…again. No. Couldn’t be the right interpretation of his gaze. That was her overactive imagination kicking out her deepest craving. She’d never been a girl who wished to belong to a male or who wanted what went with the outdated attitude implied by Lexan’s speculative scan when it dropped to her mouth. The intensity in his eyes when they connected with hers again suggested belonging wouldn’t be about ownership as it would be with a vampire.
