Shattered Days (The Firsts Book 7)

by C. L. Quinn

  Sitting here, the television still on, but muted now, her thoughts kept returning to sex with this man. He was unexpected in every way. Just an ordinary human man, troubled, trapped in his existence, and yet he took her breath away.

  She’d never been in love. Anyway, she didn’t think she had. In love with the idea of love, once or twice in all those years, but her feelings for Marc were running deeper than anything she’d ever felt. Perhaps it was the dream connection, the pain that linked them, that made her overly sensitive to him. And perhaps not.

  Tamesine had been alive long enough that she recognized this relationship was important. Whatever happened, she hoped he would let her show him what they could be together. She wanted to continue the spirit walks and healing, but she wanted more than that.

  Finding a mate was a very special thing for vampires. It often took centuries to do so, and sometimes not at all. Could this man be destined to be mated to her? She suspected it may be possible, but she didn’t know. What she did know, however, was that she wanted him and needed him. She prayed that he would be able to accept her, even if he still couldn’t believe her, until she could convince him of the truth.

  Tamesine glanced again at the clock. Twelve twenty. Shit!

  The first thing she wanted to do when she arrived at his apartment was pull him inside of her. Making love with him last night had only whetted her overactive desires. She lifted the glass of wine to take a sip while her hand slipped down to touch herself between her legs. She was moist there, already ready for him. Three am couldn’t come soon enough!

  The glass of wine had just touched her lips when the door to her apartment splintered as if a bomb exploded against it. Wood shattered into the room, Tamesine shot off of the sofa, and barely saw the three men who came through simultaneously firing at her. She felt sharp pinches in multiple places on her body, felt herself going numb and her mind fading.

  God! This was too familiar! As she lost consciousness, she knew…Lamont had found her.

  Taggert stood over the immobilized target. He toed her inert body to see if there was any reaction at all, and was pleased that there was no response. This was his first capture of a vampire and it had all gone without a hitch.

  “Good job, men. Let’s get her out of here.”

  In and out in less than sixty seconds, a perfect operation. Lamont would be pleased.

  Bowles, the largest of the team, threw the unconscious woman over his shoulder, and carried her up the concrete steps to drop her into a dark van parked right in front of the building. Taggert glanced around the apartment, just as a matter of procedure. Was there anything at all that would lead the authorities or anyone to Lamont or the SRS?

  He headed into the kitchenette as one of the men came back into the apartment briskly.

  “Sir, she’s secured and we have to go. The neighbors across the street, there’s a light on, and some woman is watching us. I think she’s got a cell phone in her hand. I’m thinking she’s alerted the police.”

  Pausing just a second longer, Taggert let his eyes do one last sweep, and followed his man out of the door.

  The van pulled away slowly and advanced up the street, turned, picked up speed, and was gone from the area in moments.

  Joe patted Marc on the back.

  “Good work tonight, buddy. I think that’s one of our busiest nights in months. You did an incredible job of keeping everything managed.” Joe paused. “In spite of the fact that you were completely distracted.” He paused and continued, reluctantly. “Is it the dreams? Are the hallucinations back?”

  Marc rolled his lips together. “No. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, not so much. Then it’s the girl? The one from the basement?”

  Joe waited while Marc just stood there, his eyes downcast. When he looked up, Marc shook his head.

  “It’s, uh, not something I can talk about. I just have to figure out what the hell I’m going to do about her.”

  “If you need to bounce off anything, let me know. I’ve had my share of issues with women over the years. There isn’t anything I haven’t seen.”

  “Yeah, Joe, thanks, but this one… This one would knock your shoes off and spit them into space.”

  “Wow. Then I wish you luck. Just, I’m still here, if you need a sounding board.”

  “I appreciate it. And on that note, I guess I’ll go home. Goodnight, Joe.”

  Marc left out of the back of the bar, and swung his leg over his bike. He put the key into it, but couldn’t turn it, and just sat there, lost in thought.

  He’d spent the day wandering around his apartment, his mind tripping almost like he was on acid. She was nuts, right? What she claimed was just the ramblings of a confused woman. None of it could be true. And yet, it kind of explained the odd things he’d seen and experienced since right after he’d met her.

  Shaking his head again, he decided it didn’t matter right now. The one thing that he’d come back to, over and over, was that he cared for her, and he would be there for her, whatever it took, whatever it meant.

  “Here I come, little vampire,” he said, as he turned the key, started the bike, and headed home.

  As the massive door to the old warehouse lowered, the van pulled up to an office area near the back.

  Taggert jumped out as soon as it came to a stop, and walked towards the smugly grinning Claude, reared back in an old leather chair that had seen better days decades earlier.

  “It went perfectly,” Taggert bragged, sliding his gloves off.

  The toothy, nasty grin on Claude’s face didn’t change.

  “Really?”

  “You’re an asshole. I hope Lamont sends you to the Kalahari for your next assignment. I’m going to let him know you’re not a team player.”

  “I don’t need a team, Taggert. I’m a one-man wrecking ball. And you’re going to have to rethink that when I save your ass here in a few moments.”

  “You have nothing to do with my ass. If you keep acting like this, I’m not even going to let you take Lamont’s plane back to France. You can fucking walk.”

  “Yeah,” Claude sighed, as he took a long draw on a slim cigar, his chair still reared back on two legs. “I don’t think so.”

  “What the fuck do you think is going to happen?”

  Now, Taggert’s team was gathered around them.

  Claude looked at each guy. “You think you got her?”

  Everyone looked confused, a few of them nodded.

  “She’s chained and secured in the back of the van?”

  Again, several of the men nodded, looking at Taggert.

  “Ignore him. He’s a jealous motherfucker. This couldn’t have gone more smoothly if she was a three-year old.”

  Claude dropped his chair back onto the ground, his eyes on something beyond Taggert’s shoulder.

  “Uh, oh. Get ready to say hi to your toddler.”

  Taggert shook his head, but turned when he heard several hollow thuds, clatters and crashes behind him.

  Standing behind the mercenary team, rifles lying broken on the concrete floor of the warehouse, the vials of serum that had been attached shattered everywhere, stood a very angry woman. Their vampire was awake.

  Tamesine wanted to tear them apart, limb from awful limb. Her eyes went to the one that had been sitting, who now stood, and was still grinning. She’d wipe that grin off of his face first.

  She drew a deep breath.

  “God, you’re idiots! You guys really haven’t gotten this yet, have you?”

  Taggert and three of his men pulled their handguns and fired at Tamesine, but she easily sidestepped the bullets this time, since she was facing them and could see them firing.

  Using air-displacement, she was on top of them and had disarmed them in seconds, shoving all remaining men down so hard onto the floor, they could barely draw breath.

  Then she turned to Claude.

  “You’re the one who tried to kill Lauren, aren’t you?”

  “The name’s Cla
ude, at your service. And you might want to wait before you consider harming me. You might want to see what is on this computer screen first.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Just, take a look, please.”

  Tamesine, suspicious, her eyes on Claude as she pushed him aside, faced the tablet computer propped on the desktop, watched his every move, as he bent forward and touched the screen.

  What was apparently a video-camera image came up, and there, seated in a metal chair, his face torn up, his clothes ripped and dirty, his hands bound, barely conscious, was Frank.

  Her eyes shot to Claude, as her hands found his throat and squeezed.

  “What the fuck? Where is he?”

  “Where indeed?” Claude said, gasping a little through a pained smile.

  “I can compel you to tell me, you gnat.”

  “Go ahead. Compel. I can’t tell you anything, because I have no idea where he is. My people have been instructed to keep him safe, barely, but under no circumstances, to tell me where he is. If you want him to live, you will comply with everything I ask of you. Lamont wants you in Europe, and he’ll take you dead or alive. He would prefer alive. It’s up to you. You can take your freedom, and kill us. Or you can go with us, with no resistance, and perhaps your little human friend will live to a ripe old age. And you will mask your life signal. We are well aware that your friends can find you if you don’t. I will warn you now, that if they come for you, if we see them anywhere, that man is dead.”

  Tamesine just stood there, her blood running cold, her heart stilled, as she watched Frank fighting to breathe. These horrible, horrible people.

  “He’s human,” she said. “You guys aren’t supposed to hurt humans.”

  “He’s a pawn. We play with what we have. Decide, now, does he live or die?”

  Oh, God, she had no choice. She couldn’t let Frank die, she could never live with herself if she did. This would work out, she just needed to buy the time. So she nodded.

  “I’ll come with you. I do promise you, though, that if anything happens to that man, I will shred you, all of you.”

  She looked directly at Claude. “You, I will rip apart so slowly, you will feel every second of the pain.”

  Claude smiled. “Check, and mate.” He looked at Taggert, who now stood nearby, as his men had, and watched this unfold. “Now, what was that you were saying earlier about your ass?”

  Marc poured another glass of whiskey, and chugged half, the burning familiar and comforting in his throat.

  She was late.

  His eyes shot to his cell phone, the only time device in the apartment. Three-forty-five.

  Had she changed her mind? Had she decided it was a mistake to try to claim something so unbelievable? Was she too embarrassed to come to him? Was she okay?

  He was getting worried. Upending the glass, he grabbed his keys and headed out of his apartment on a run. Blaming himself for not thinking about it sooner, he hurried across town. She’d commented that she thought she was dangerous, would she have hurt herself?

  Oh, fuck, he shouldn’t have left her. He should have stayed and supported her. He hoped like hell it wasn’t too late.

  Traffic was almost non-existent this time of night, and he made it to her place in minutes. Jumping off of his bike, he scaled the steps, two at a time, stopping suddenly when he saw that the door to her apartment was gone. The lights were still burning inside, and as he entered, he scanned the scene, calling her name.

  “Tam? Tam, are you here?”

  He raced into the kitchen, but it was empty, then back to the living room.

  “Tam?” he called again.

  A voice behind him gave him hope until he turned and saw it wasn’t her. A dark haired girl holding a baby stood there.

  “Hey. Holy shit! They destroyed the place.”

  “What happened here?” Marc asked urgently.

  “I’m not sure. I live across the street. The baby woke me up about an hour ago, and I saw this van pull up. I kind of watched out the window, and a bunch of guys came down here. I can’t see the door from my place, but they came back out, and I thought they were carrying something. I started to call the cops, but then they left, so I just went back to bed. But, shit!”

  “The woman who lives here, have you seen her?”

  “Nah. Crap, I bet that’s what they had. I bet they took her? I’m sorry, mister, I should have called the cops.”

  “I’ll do it. Thanks, though, you’ve helped a lot.”

  “Sure. I hope you find her. Hope she’s okay.”

  “Thanks.”

  The baby began to whimper, so the girl waved at Marc and walked back up the stairs.

  He turned and looked carefully at the entire scene.

  The door had been splintered into arrow-like shards, broken inward, the pieces scattered all over the floor. A shattered wine glass was crunched into pieces near the sofa, a half-eaten sandwich lay on a plate on the table nearby. The television was burning a late-night infomercial, but the sound was muted.

  The sheets on the mattress were still tangled, likely because she’d rolled out of bed suddenly after that tense morning.

  Oh, fuck. How would he find her? He had no idea who or what would have taken her. For what purpose? The truth was he knew almost nothing about her, so even if he contacted the police, he couldn’t help them at all.

  Wandering around the room, he was looking for any clue, anything, that might lead him to understand what had happened to her. There was nothing unusual, nothing that drew his attention, the kitchen exactly as it should be. As he stopped before the mattress, he dropped down and slid his hand against the smooth satin. High quality sheets for a girl on a waitress’s salary. He hadn’t paid any attention when he was lying on top of them and pumping into her.

  He smiled bitterly. He had been a bit distracted from assessing the quality of the sheets at the time. His eyes zoned in on a touch of pink along the edge of the crème-colored bedding, and he reached for it.

  Fuck. Her cell phone. If there was anything that might help, this was it. As he leaned back against the wall, he slid the lock open. Thank God she didn’t have it password protected.

  He searched through. There wasn’t much, no pictures, no videos. No apps. Contacts.

  “Here we go,” he said out loud, as only two numbers scrolled onto the screen. One was his, but the other one was marked Eillia. It was an international number, but that seemed right since she’d told him she had come to L.A. from France.

  Marc hesitated only a moment, then hit the autodial.

  After several rings, a soft feminine voice answered.

  “Tamesine?” she said, questioningly.

  Marc had no idea what to say, so he just told her exactly what he knew.

  “Look, um, my name is Marc and you don’t know me, but if you’re a friend of a little blonde named Tamesine, well, I think she’s in trouble and I have no idea how to help her.”

  There was silence, then some whispering, then the woman spoke back into the phone.

  “I’m sorry, your call woke me, so excuse me if I’m a little fuzzy. You’re a friend of Tamesine’s?”

  “Yeah, kind of. It’s too strange to explain, but I think she was abducted.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I think I am. She was supposed to meet me tonight, but she didn’t show up. When I got to her apartment, I found the door smashed, there’s a broken wine glass on the floor, and she’s missing. A neighbor said some men showed up in a van and they took something out of the apartment. I think it was Tam. I know this is a long shot, but would you have any idea who might do something like this?”

  After another pause, the woman answered Marc.

  “I do. Can you text me the address? I’ll be there by tonight.”

  “That’s great, but I need to start searching now. Tell me where I should start.”

  “Forgive me, but, who are you?”

  “That’s another strange answer,
so let’s just say I’m a friend.”

  “Are you…” The woman stopped, then continued carefully. “Are you like Tamesine?”

  What the hell did that mean?

  “I really don’t know how to answer that, and I don’t have the time to waste. Can you give me a lead or not?”

  “No, I can’t. I think it’s best you stay clear. Thank you for letting me know, but I’ll take it from here. Good night.”

  The line went dead, and Marc just stared at it for a few moments.

  Are you like Tamesine? What an odd question.

  Marc decided the woman would be of no help to him, so he sat down to consider his options. He was hesitant to involve the local police because he didn’t know what might be going on. Was it possible that Tamesine was involved in something illegal? Under normal circumstances, people weren’t abducted from their homes so dramatically for no reason.

  The first thing he wanted to find out was if that woman from across the street might remember more about the van. And if perhaps someone else may have noticed it. Marc would need to canvas the street, but it was his best potential lead to finding the ones who took her. He went into Tamesine’s kitchen and made a cup of strong coffee. He was going to need it.

  IN THE SWISS ALPS

  “Get off of me, all of you, get out of here!”

  All three women scrambled out of Lamont’s monster-sized bed, grabbing any piece of clothing they could without lingering. He was such a creep, and they were happy to get away from him. One girl slipped on some bedding, and another came back for her, afraid that he’d take it out on all of them. Daily, the man worsened, both in his behavior and his appetites. The bed might be monster-sized, but the women thought it not anywhere nearly large enough to contain the ego of the monster who slept in it.

  Lamont massaged his dick. It was sore, but he knew he’d abused it. It was just that this vampire blood made him so fucking horny all the time.