In the next instant, pain laced her cheek from the backhanded slap. As she tried to clear her jarred brain, her coat was ripped from her body. A disgusting string of appreciative noises came from her assailants, and she was slammed up against the burning hot side of the still running jeep.
“Is she the one?” the man near the cliff asked. His voice was odd, harsh and scratchy, like he’d been smoking since birth.
“Looks like it,” the man next to her replied. He was the youngest of the three. “We should bring her in, just in case.”
“We only need to bring in her head,” the third man laughed.
Cora gagged on a sob. Her eyes blurred from both horror and the pain that still stung her cheek.
“Shame to kill such a sweet ass,” Scratchy Voice said apathetically.
“Well, we don’t have to kill her right away. Is the vamp dead?”
“I shot him three times. What do you think?”
A pair of rough hands pulled her forward and pushed her toward Scratchy Voice. “You hold her. I call first crack.”
“No way. I’m the one who brought you in on this. I go first.” He shoved her aside.
“Screw that. I don’t do sloppy seconds,” the young man said.
“Fuck you.”
Fists swung between the two, while the third held a gun to her head and waited indifferently for the outcome.
Cora stood, shaking, heart thundering, as she contemplated what was sure to be the end of her life. What a sad, pathetic, useless end. How utterly unimportant her life turned out to be. Nothing but an ode to endurance with less than a few short months dedicated to happiness. Or as close to happiness as she would ever experience.
What was the point of life, anyway, if there was nothing but sorrow, heartache, and pain? If everyone was nothing more than cruelty wrapped up in the facade of civility. Morality was a joke created by cynics and con artists. Evil reigned at every turn. Anything good decayed like fruit and turned sour, hateful, greedy, and selfish.
She wasn’t fit for this world.
A snarling roar made the men freeze mid-fight.
Cora looked up.
A mountain lion stood atop a pile of rocks, some fifty feet away, its fangs bared at them.
The men swore and scrambled back.
The young one yelled, “Shoot it!” and the man with the gun to her head turned it on the animal.
Three loud shots echoed off the mountain ridges, but the sound hadn’t come from the directions she’d expected.
The three men fell lifeless, blood oozing from each of their skulls, staining the gravel.
Heart slamming, Cora crumbled to the ground, gasping and sobbing uncontrollably.
She gathered herself enough to glance around and take stock. The humans were dead. The lion was gone, most likely scared by the gunfire. She spied Mason’s upper body slumped over the edge of the cliff, a pistol in his limp hand. It seemed he had managed to pull himself up, but looked to be unconscious again.
“Mason?” she called, her voice shaking.
He didn’t respond, didn’t move.
The space around her now seemed eerily quiet, except for the jeep’s engine, which had been left idling.
Her mind jumped into overdrive, still riding on the heels of adrenaline. The wisest course of action would be to take the jeep and put as much space between her, Mason, St. Stamsworth, and vampires in general. Drive till either the car died, or she did.
At the thought, numbness coated her. Run till she died? It sounded no better than going back to the streets. Besides, Mason had saved her life. What was it? Three times now? She owed him for that at least.
Beating back her trepidation, she rummaged through the pockets of the dead men, claiming whatever cash she found. It wasn’t much. For good measure, she kicked one of them twice in the stomach. As pointless as it was, it made her feel better.
“Mace?” She knelt beside him and rocked his body. “Mace? Can you hear me?”
His eyes fluttered. “Cora…” He finished with an incoherent mutter.
“If you can make it into the jeep, I can drive us out of here and find help.”
Mace seemed to understand. His head tilted up to gauge the distance between them and the jeep. His arm moved to push against the gravel, slowly elevating his torso. She helped as much as she could, which was almost not at all. When he inched forward, she caught the sight of his back. One of the shots had probably penetrated his spine. She spotted another gory wound at his shoulder. That didn’t include the first that had gouged his chest. All three wounds oozed a foul-smelling green substance. She couldn’t imagine the kind of pain he was in.
As he lumbered forward, dragging himself along the ground on his hands and knees, she yanked him by the arm, urging more than helping him along. He paused, breathing heavily, then slumped down. His lungs heaved for air.
Her gaze darted over her surroundings. They were in trouble if those men had back up. Then she remembered that mountain lion. Any moment, it could return, enticed by the fresh scent of death.
“Get up, get up,” she chanted.
Mace pulled his arm forward and began to drag himself once more toward the jeep. Cora pulled up on his forearm when he tried to stand, offering leverage. He got to his feet, but went back down to his knees directly after. Again she helped him up, panting and sweating as she used all her strength to aid him in conquering another few feet.
With a sound of pain, he went down once more, catching himself by one strong arm. With the other, he clutched his chest wound. His face twisted in a grotesque mask of unimaginable agony.
“Not far now,” she encouraged.
Inch by inch, she helped him crawl across the gravel toward the jeep. The whole process must have taken twenty minutes or more, but eventually they succeeded in getting to the jeep.
His muscles bulged angrily as he pulled himself into the passenger seat while she tried to lift his lower half. When he was fully inside, he let out a harsh breath. His body folded forward over the dashboard.
Cora closed the door behind him, took the driver’s seat, and drew in a deep breath.
What in the hell am I going to do now?
Chapter 6
“Mason? Mason, wake up. Please wake up.”
The soft, feminine voice lulled him out of a deep slumber and then dunked him into the fiery pits of hell. His blood burned as though laced with sulfuric acid.
He cracked his eyes open, confused at first to see a dark, shadowy world rushing past him. Cora rigidly leaned over the steering wheel as she drove much too fast through the darkness. How long had he been out?
The nauseating smell of his own cooked flesh pierced his nostrils. The ammunition those men had used was designed for vampires. Too bad for them it wasn’t potent enough to kill, only meant to incapacitate. Mace wondered if they had known that.
Probably not. Otherwise they would have been sure to finish him off.
“Mace?” Cora glanced at him with wide, bloodshot eyes.
“Watch the road,” he chastised. “How long have I been out?”
“Two hours. Do you need…do you need to drink?” There was an unsteady note in her tone.
He blinked at her.
Was she offering? Even after all she had revealed? Without turning her head from the road, her eyes darted nervously his way. Tenderness for her warmed his chest. However, there was no way he would take from her again. Not when it drudged up such terrible memories for her.
When he didn’t answer right away, she let off the gas, and the jeep began to slow.
“Keep driving,” he ordered, then he reached for his phone, ignoring the agonizing pain that shot through his spine as he moved. The time was just after eight in the evening. He scrolled to Trent’s name, but paused. Just like that black SUV, those hicks had targeted him and Cora. Any number of police officers had known which road they were to take out of the city, but only Trent had known where to find them today.
Mace wasn’t about to enter
tain the idea that his longtime friend and sire might betray him. More likely, Trent was keeping both the VEA and human enforcement agency informed of their situation. Which meant anyone of them could be responsible for issuing the hit.
Still, Mace refrained from calling for now. He needed to find a safe place where he could heal first.
His phone’s GPS map put them approximately twenty minutes from the closest town. Lucky break that Cora had continued along this road.
He typed the name of their destination and mapped out a route, then handed the phone to Cora. “Go here. I have an acquaintance there who owes me one.”
Cora read the name of their destination: Ever Nights. The place was located in Cloverdale, one of the many cities that had been burned to the ground—mostly due to hysteria—after the vamps had first been exposed, and rebuilt. Before that, the vampire population in Cloverdale had probably been countable on one hand. After? Out of the ashes, a new city arose, its vampire demographic in the hundreds, if not thousands.
Of course that was where Mason would want to go—a place where sane, intelligent humans endeavored to avoid.
“Mason? Is it necessary…?”
Mace grimaced painfully and clutched his chest. His breathing sounded labored, like air rushing through a clogged exhaust.
“You need blood. I’m going to pull over.”
“No…keep going. Cortez…will…” He groaned. “The shrapnel’s…” His words dwindled to a babble of incoherency. His eyes fluttered. Then he passed out completely.
“Shit, Mason. You’re essentially sending me into vampire territory with no protection. You better not’ve been bullshitting me earlier.” She recalled how angry he had become over her story, furiously so. And then he’d sounded so earnest, so sympathetic to her plight that she’d found herself actually softening toward him. And for the moment, it seemed impossible that Mace could be as cruel as Edgar.
She hoped she could hold him to that. Because if she couldn’t, she was so screwed.
Twenty minutes later, Cora pulled into the parking lot of Ever Nights. The neon lights were indicative of—
“A strip joint?” Cora groaned and then doubled checked Mason’s directions. She had followed them to the T.
She turned to him. He was still unconscious in the passenger seat, head tipped back, arms limp by his side. A light sheen of sweat coated his forehead. On the way here, his big body had fallen over onto her, pushing her into the driver’s side door. It had taken all her strength and a surge of adrenaline that was surely her last to prop him back up and keep the car from veering off the road.
He bled heavily from the lesion in his chest, and an abnormal discharge bubbled around the edges. Any mortal would be long dead, judging by the severity of the wound.
“Mason. We’re here. Wake up.” She jostled him lightly by the shoulder.
He hissed out a pained sound, showing his fangs, though his eyes remained closed. She yanked her hand away just as he snapped at her.
He must need blood badly. How much had he already lost? She owed him a debt. The only thing she could offer was her vein. However, after his aggressive display just now, she wasn’t sure she could trust him not to drain her dry in his stupor.
With him incapacitated, it wouldn’t do to risk her own life. Besides, according to Mace, there was someone named Cortez who might be able to help.
She hopped out of the jeep and rushed inside, coming face-to-face with a very large, very frightening, undoubtedly vampiric, bouncer. His all-black ensemble, thick chain necklace, leather arm cuff, silver-tipped steel-toe boots, and all those tattoos weren’t necessary to add to the aura of menace that clung to the broad-shouldered vampire. Neither was the deep scowl aimed directly at her. Wasn’t necessary, but it worked all the same.
Cora lost her voice for a moment.
The vampire’s lips curled ever so slightly as he took her in. Her mouth was hanging open as if she fully expected eloquent, well-thought-out words to emerge.
All that came was a scratchy, high-pitched, “Cortez?”
The part of her brain that recognized she was but a wee fluffy mammal in the presence of a powerful, meat-eating predator infected the section dedicated to bravery. It was almost physically painful to plant her feet and keep her body in place when all she wanted to do was run in the opposite direction.
One thing kept her staring flatly into the eyes of that vampire: The solid, bone deep, and undeniable knowledge that if she ran now, she was as good as dead. Even if this monster of a vamp let her go, she wouldn’t survive much longer if Mace didn’t pull through. Mace, and his promise to keep her safe, was all she had in the world.
She mustered up all her bravado and straightened her spine. “I need to see Cortez.”
“The man owe you money or something, honey?”
She wasn’t sure if it was wise to inform this brute that a nearly dead fellow vampire lay mere yards away. She didn’t know who to trust, if anyone. And since Mace only mentioned one name...
“Or are you looking for a gig?” He leered down at her body.
She had completely spaced her manner of dress. Her tan trench coat remained back with the three dead would-be murderers.
The vampire smiled, revealing long white canines. “Perhaps you’re looking for something else? You don’t need Cortez for that.”
She swallowed a painfully thick lump in her throat. “Cortez will want to see me right away, and if you don’t go get him and bring him here, you will regret it.” Every bit the lie it was, she had somehow managed to sound assiduous and grave.
The vamp’s dark, almost black eyes narrowed. “You expect me to fetch Cortez for you?”
She got the impression that Cortez wasn’t one to be fetched for anything. That maybe he ordered the fetching.
“Take me to him, then.” She tensed her arms at her side, resisting the urge to fidget. Bringing Mace to a vampire den was one thing. Asking for entry was entirely another.
Suspicion bloomed on the bouncer’s face. “Cortez has many enemies, and your heart’s pounding like a little critter. Would you say that’s from fear, or insidious intentions?”
She offered a half-truth. “It’s from urgency.” Of course it was mostly from fear.
“I smell blood on you, little critter. And not your own.”
“So? You’re a vamp. I’m sure you smell blood all day long.”
“True. But not many use it as perfume. What business do you have with Cortez?”
“That’s between he and I.”
The bouncer took a menacing step toward her, glowering. “It’ll be between you and six feet of dirt before I let you in here, honey. If Cortez wants to see you, he’ll seek you out.”
She felt hope dwindle. “Please. This is life and death.”
The bouncer remained unmoved.
Mace was teetering on the brink of death. It might already be too late. She couldn’t wait another second. “Cortez!” she screamed, then sucked in a breath and used the full force of her lungs to scream for Cortez again.
The bouncer slammed his palms against his ears. One of those men on the mountain had called her a banshee. Right now, she didn’t mind the distinction.
“Woman! Do you have a death wish?” The bouncer growled, but didn’t budge from his post.
A part of her was surprised he hadn’t snapped her neck just out of irritation. She yelled out once more.
“Dane, what’s the fuss out here?” A voice came from a darkened corridor that she hadn’t noticed before.
“This broad is wack,” the bouncer replied, gesturing toward her.
Cora strained to see past the darkness. A shadowed entity, outlined by thick muscle, loomed just inside.
“Cortez?” she asked.
“She clearly doesn’t know Cortez,” the shadow told Dane. “Get rid of her. She’s disrupting Kenzi’s act.”
“No, I don’t know Cortez,” Cora rushed out. “But I need to see him, please. I need his help. Someone he knows is dyin
g. I don’t have time to explain.” Through her speech, her eyes had adjusted slightly to the darkness, though she could only make out the chiseled jaw and full mouth of the other man. Yet she could tell the two shared a look.
“Who?” They both asked in unison, dubiously.
She didn’t see any way around it. She couldn’t barrel past them on a mad dash. And even if she could, which would be a miracle in and of itself, she’d still end up bumbling around an unfamiliar place looking for a man she didn’t know from Adam.
“His name is Mace…uh, Mason. I don’t know his last name. He’s with the VEA, and he’s hurt.”
Both males turned their heads to the left as if looking at something, or someone, out of sight.
From that same direction, a third vampire appeared, stepping fully into the light. He was decked out in a jet-black, tailored button-down and charcoal slacks. His short, dark, tussled hair was styled in a way meant to appear effortless. Winston spent hundreds on a look similar to that, yet always managed to fall short. But this vampire owned it. He oozed sexuality. Even if he were dressed in a ripped stained T-shirt, he would ooze sexuality.
He stepped past the other two and approached her at a quick pace. Instinct overrode her courage and she stumbled through the entrance, back outside. As her feet touched the pavement of the parking lot, he gripped her by the arm and caught her in a hard-as-ice gaze.
“Where is he?”
“Er…are you Cortez?”
One of his brows lifted.
She probably should have answered him right away. It hadn’t occurred to her that this vampire would try to compel her. She realized her mistake too late, but she couldn’t bring herself to care just now. She would deal with that later.
“I am,” he replied. “Now where is Mason?”
She pointed with her free arm to the jeep. “He’s in there.”
Cortez spared a glance at the jeep, then looked back at the other two, gesturing to it with this head. With that, they crossed the lot to the vehicle and checked through the window. As she followed them with her gaze, Cortez watched her closely. His words, however, were not for her. “Is he conscious?”
A Wicked Hunger (Creatures of Darkness 1) Page 7
