by Justin Sloan
“What?” Sandra asked, lifting her head, which Diego was cradling. “I—I’m fine.”
“I think she’s referring to me,” Diego said. Was he blushing beneath the smeared blood? It was hard to tell.
It only hit Sandra then that he must be nude, having just transformed back to a man so that he could catch her. And, he was holding her close. She gulped, her heart fluttering.
She bit her lip and chuckled. All the adrenaline was pouring out of her in the form of laughter now, and soon Diego and Valerie were laughing too.
“My nude hero,” Sandra said, allowing him to help her up and smiling at the way he was conscious about covering himself this time—he certainly hadn’t cared last time she’d seen him like this.
“Hey, you saved me as much as I saved you,” he pointed out.
“Sandra, you want me to leave you two alone here, or…?” Valerie asked. “I mean it’s that or head back to regroup and get cleaned up. Your call.”
“Hardy har-har,” Sandra grunted out. “Call me old fashioned, but even with this hunk-o-meat standing here naked,” she pointed around the area, “the blood and gore kinda spoils the mood for me.”
“You’re not alone there,” he agreed, turning to find his clothes.
At least his rear wasn’t covered in blood, she noted, before he disappeared into the shadows to get dressed. She turned back to see Valerie giving her a raised eyebrow.
“Think I didn’t see that?” Valerie said.
Sandra just shrugged. A moment later Diego returned, buttoning his shirt.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.
“Just… one last thing,” Sandra said. Very aware of Valerie’s eyes on her but not caring in the least, she walked over to Diego, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and kissed him.
His warm lips were gentle, his hands firm as he held her against him.
“Ahem,” Valerie said. But they kept kissing. “AHEM!”
Sandra couldn’t help but laugh again as she broke off the kiss, winking at Diego where Valerie couldn’t see. “Okay, okay, we’re coming.”
“Need I remind you, there could be a new batch of hunters, Weres, and Enforcers here any minute, hell-bent on seeing us either dead or serving as blood-banks?”
That sobered up the giddiness and Sandra nodded, biting her lip.
“Maybe it’s best I hold your hand,” Diego said, already leading her by the hand to the exit. “You know, because you were dizzy.”
“Right, that might be best.” She shrugged at Valerie again, who simply rolled her eyes and followed them out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“It was one thing running from the Enforcers and killing those who burst into my room as I’m trying to sleep” Valerie grumbled as she reached the bottom of the stairs where Cammie and the others waited. “Now I have to put up with these two.”
Cammie glanced over at Sandra and Diego holding hands and just shook her head. “Hey, if they can find a way to get their minds off of all this, I say good for them.”
“What’s the story with the cops?” Sandra asked, nodding toward the two police men with Cammie.
“They’re on our side,” Valerie said. “You don’t recognize that one?” She pointed to the man on the right.
Sandra squinted and then recognition washed over her. “He wasn’t shooting at our people though, was he?”
“If he had been, he’d be dead,” Valerie stated, then shrugged when the cop’s eyes darted toward her after her matter-of-fact comment.
“Good enough for me,” Sandra stated. “Wait, you don’t think they’ll give us away? I mean, we’re not taking them to the hideout, are we?”
“We are. Them and two others who are wounded,” Cammie said. “And if they do try to turn on us, in any way, being dead would be the least of their worries when I got through with them.” The two cops grimaced, but stood tall. Cammie eyed Diego’s disheveled and blood splattered clothes he had grabbed from someone. Or, maybe it was the way he was holding Sandra close, since being covered in blood wasn’t exactly out of place right now. “You’re welcome by the way.”
“For rescuing me?” He laughed, but then pulled back at her glare. “Oh, I’m not laughing at that. Definitely thank you for sure for coming when you did. It’s just that I found it ironic that I was on my way back to warn these two about hunters, and ended up getting caught by them.”
Cammie nodded with a look like she’d consider forgiving him for laughing. “That is pretty ironic.”
“Okay, can we focus?” Sandra pointed at the teeth mark on her arm. “Kinda worried about turning into a Were here. Can we get somewhere to clean this off?”
“Would that really be so bad?” Cammie asked, irritation coloring in her voice. “Being a Were, I mean.”
Diego glanced over at Sandra as if he was going to say something defensive, but he pulled her close and said, “Actually, we should get that cleaned. At least to avoid infection.”
“But the Were thing?” Sandra held up her free hand toward Cammie, as if to hold her back. “Not that it’d be the worst thing in the world, just… I kinda like who I am.”
“Me too,” Diego said with a wink that made Valerie scoff. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t look like the teeth were deep, so as long as we get your wound cleaned soon, you should be good.”
“Cammie?” Valerie said, nodding toward old downtown and the direction of the Were hideout.
“Right.” Cammie called her Weres and the newly recruited vampires, and they all moved out.
Sneaking through the city with this large of a group wasn’t optimal, so Valerie and Cammie broke them into five small sub-groups that would approach via different routes.
Valerie led one, with Diego and Sandra sticking close, even though she considered making them go with another team so she wouldn’t have to roll her eyes or scoff every five minutes. They also had two Weres in Valerie’s group lead the way, and five new vampires—a mixture of male and female. The cops had gone with Cammie’s group, and they were supposedly going the most confusing route, so that the cops wouldn’t be able to easily retrace their steps.
Valerie’s group went the route of least resistance—a straight shot through the city, figuring she could defend them well enough on her own if they ran into trouble.
“You all… part of some kinda gang or something?” One of the new vampires asked. He was tall, with a broad chest and arms that showed that he either worked out or had been blessed with superior vampire blood. “I haven’t heard of any clans taking up residence in the city, and certainly not Weres and Forsaken working together.”
“We’ll be the first,” Valerie said, pausing at the corner of an apartment building that was full of drugged out men and women, like the one she’d found when they first arrived. She turned to look at the Vampired, “But Forsaken will never be a name for me and mine…ever.” He nodded his understanding when her eyes pierced him in place.
She returned her attention to the surroundings. Nothing seemed to be out of place, and the people with wondering eyes were so out of it that she doubted anyone would even notice the blood, much less care. “That does bring up a good point, we need a name for our clan.”
“Is that a thing you do?” one of the Weres asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s a thing we’ll do.” She led them onward, sticking to the shadows when possible. “My father, or creator or whatever you want to call him, called his group the Blessed. Said we were special, meant for great things—not just repopulating the world with vampires, but more. So nothing like that from us.”
Sandra scrunched up her face in thought, then said, “Go the opposite, like the Damned?”
“What, I’d be the Queen of the Damned?” Valerie asked. “I don’t think so. Next.”
“It’s not a bad title,” the vampire exclaimed. “It’s just that every vampire chick starts calling herself that around here, eventually. Some old meaning, I’d imagine. Not that there are many female vampires
, unfortunately.”
That last bit he added with an interested glance toward Valerie’s chest.
“What was your name?” she asked, barely hiding her irritation.
“Royland,” he said, remembering himself.
“Well, I’m flattered that you find my breasts so engaging, but we might, just might, want to focus on staying alive through the night and tomorrow, so we’re all ready the next night when the siege takes place.”
“And then when we’re done there, I get to stare as long as I want?” he pushed.
His smile was almost charming enough to forgive him the question. Almost. She was about to say something, when Sandra was at his throat with the blade she’d picked up on the roof.
“Talk like that to my mistress again, and I’ll find out how long you take to heal from a slit throat.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Diego said, following her and then putting one hand on the knife and the other on the vampire’s chest. “We get the message, right everyone? Don’t insult the Mistress.”
“Mistress?” Valerie said with a look at Sandra.
“Sorry,” the woman said as she pulled the knife away. “Old habits die hard.”
Valerie just waved everyone else to continue on, and then waited until it was just her and this Royland vampire. “Take down the whole Enforcer headquarters and bring me the head honcho’s head, we’ll make sure you get at least a small peek.”
He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Deal ends at midnight,” she said, and then tried out a wink like she always saw Diego do. It actually made the vampire blush.
“Ah, shucks,” he said. “I might have to pass this time, what with the whole needing to recover after being held as a prisoner and having my blood drained.”
“Excuses are like… what is the American saying?”
“Assholes, though I haven’t heard that one in a number of years.”
“Great wisdom lives on for generations.”
He laughed and gave her an approving nod before she picked up the pace to check on Sandra.
“Shoulda let her kick his butt,” Diego told Valerie with a grin.
“He wasn’t so bad.” Valerie took Sandra’s arm and inspected it. She was happy to see it wasn’t getting worse. “You know, if you did go Were, this would be healed by now.”
“You like the attention,” Sandra said. “From the vamp back there. Admit it.”
Valerie tried to ignore Sandra’s smile, “Give me a break.”
“Just saying. You were super sheltered under the Duke, and then the way your brother would threaten anyone who even glanced your way, I—”
“He what?” Valerie frowned, at first trying to understand what Sandra had just said, and then remembering days at the camps back in France, and how the guys would always disappear right when she was starting to think there might be interest there.
“So it makes sense that you’d like a little attention,” Sandra shrugged. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
Valerie wanted to kill Donovan double now—not only was he out there killing innocents, but he’d screwed with her love life to the point that her former servant was now calling her desperate, basically.
Screw that guy to hell!
“You think he’s coming?” Sandra said, as if reading Valerie’s mind. “They always talked about it, but… like, soon?”
“He can’t be that much of a threat,” Diego said. “I mean, once these vampires are rested, and with the Weres we have on our side now.”
The worry on Sandra’s face did a pretty good job of matching what was going on in Valerie’s mind.
“You’d be surprised.” Valerie looked over the milling shapes of her small army of Weres and Vampires, wondering if they’d be able to hold their own against Donovan. She’d have to make sure of it.
They reached the edge of the buildings and paused to listen as warning sirens sounded, and then massive, metal walls rose out of the ground back in the direction they’d just come.
“Must be the walls the cop mentioned,” Sandra said. “Back when we first arrived.”
Diego whistled, impressed. “I could see how getting trapped on the other side of that could be an issue.”
“Never seen the walls before?” one of the Weres asked. “They’ve been keeping all sorts of nomad groups out of this city. ‘Course, those in the know recognize the threat as more from the Forsaken than anything else.” He nodded at Royland. “Namely, his clan.”
Royland met the Were’s eyes, and for a moment his eyes flashed red, but then Valerie noticed it wasn’t a red of anger, but of sorrow. A tear of blood dripped down the vampire’s cheek.
“We weren’t any different than your type,” Royland said. “Simply trying to survive.”
“And now?” Valerie asked.
“Now, it’s just me. The rest… failed to survive.”
A sudden desire to comfort him came over Valerie, but then she realized that, maybe Sandra was right. Maybe she was a bit more easily manipulated, and this was part of his charm.
So instead of going on her instincts, she told him, “We’ve all lost someone we cared about.”
Before she could see what sort of reaction that earned her, the leading Were paused and turned to them pointing.
“We’re here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Underground Hideout
Valerie had just cleaned up—the hideout had a shower system one might charitably call decent. They pilfered water from an underground pipe and you had to use buckets and old towels to scrub clean. The fact that it was freezing water didn’t bother Valerie too much, but Sandra was shivering as they dried themselves off.
Before dressing, she applied a cloth to the teeth marks in her arm.
“It's not too bad,” Valerie said, tossing the towel aside and then moving over to check on her friend’s wrists. “But you’ve been letting me feed from you too much, lately. Tonight, I promise to find others to help me heal, if needed.”
“You know I’m always happy to be of service,” Sandra said, blushing.
Valerie shook her head, then assessed the woman. “Speaking of feeding, it’s been too long for you.”
“No, Val—”
“Shhh.” Valerie lifted her wrist and bit into it, then pressed it to Sandra’s mouth. The young woman drank, as she often had before, and for a moment Valerie felt that shared bond they’d felt each time before. As blood throbbed in her wrist, she felt a yearning to take Sandra in her arms, feel flesh against flesh, and consume her, tasting her blood until they were in a joint ecstasy of blood satiation.
But she resisted, instead pulling back and finding the towel to first wipe Sandra’s mouth and chin, and then her wrist, which had already healed. She glanced back at Sandra, noting the distant yet satisfied look in her eyes.
In fact, if Valerie’s eyes weren’t deceiving her, Sandra looked healthier and possibly even slightly younger. The bags under Sandra’s eyes from the intensity of recent days seemed to be improving as she watched.
Valerie doubted that Sandra would need the cloth bandages for much longer. But why the distance? Was that a hint of shame she saw there?
