by Lola Taylor
Chapter 11
THE AIR DROPPED IN temperature until frost began to form on the vegetation around us, slicking the blanket with a fine white sheen.
Frost…
I looked at him sharply. “You’re the one who was in my room the other night. And who left that message on my windshield.”
Hector looked between us, eyes narrowing. They shone with red, through that could have been my imagination.
Damien smiled, eyes sparkling as if he found my revelation amusing. “Very good, Sally.”
“Why are you following me?” I said.
“You… arouse me.”
That sent shivers through me, but they were far from the pleasant ones Hector gave me. “Stay away from me.”
“No can do,” Damien said. “Once a paranormal’s caught my attention, I’m like a dog with a bone. I can’t stop chasing it.”
“What are you?” Hector growled.
Damien’s smile was pleasant enough, but the same coldness that had taken to the air lingered in his eyes. He sized Hector up with clear loathing. “Someone a lot more powerful than you, incubus.”
An orange glow began emanating from Hector’s whole body, and wisps of flame curled around his fingertips. “I’m no ordinary incubus.”
Quicker than I would have thought possible, Hector hurled a dagger made out of fire at Damien, who leapt out of the way with a hiss, narrowly missing it.
I gasped, staggering back. Hector’s eyes swirled with fire. He looked like a demon straight out of hell.
“Get in the car!” he yelled. “I’ll cover you.”
I didn’t hesitate. Running as hard as I could, I jerked the door open and climbed inside. My hands shook so hard, I was having a hard time buckling my seat belt when Hector opened the driver’s side door and sat down. Reaching over, he snapped the belt home, then cranked the key. The engine had only roared to life when he yanked the gear back into reverse, then jammed it into drive. The tires spun for a few seconds, pitching up dirt and gravel before the car shot off like a bullet.
I held onto the doorframe as we hurtled through several potholes before at last swerving onto the empty highway and gunning it down the road. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” he growled, eyes glued forward, though he kept glancing back at the rearview mirror. “I couldn’t get a lock on his signature, which means he’s a hybrid.”
“No, I meant where did your fire powers come from? Incubi don’t have those kinds of abilities.”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “It was gifted to me from Erys, when she died.”
“You were there?”
“She died in my arms.”
My heart broke at the pain in his voice. “You said you could tell Damien was a hybrid because of his shifting signature?”
He glanced at me. “You know him?”
“It’s a long story.”
“We have about ten minutes.”
Fair enough. I gave him the truncated version of my alley encounter with the homeless vampire, how Damien had swooped in like a dark prince and saved me, and the subsequent eerie messages that led me to believe he could be stalking me. Hector’s hands fisted around the steering wheel so hard I feared he may break it when I told him how the D.P.I. had dismissed my claims.
“Don’t worry,” Hector said, determination filling his handsome face. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear.”
I bit my lip, thinking. “You never answered my question.”
He raised a brow.
“About hybrid signatures.”
“They shift, constantly on the verge of being one thing then deciding to be something else at the last minute. It makes it very hard to detect exactly what type of creature you’re dealing with.”
“Could you tell at all what Damien was?”
He shook his head. “No, this one is strong, even by our standards.”
“Great,” I muttered.
Both of us froze as something roared from the distance, an ominous sound that set the hairs on end all over my body, as if the damned themselves were screaming in agony. “Did you…?”
“Yes,” he said gravely.
“What was it?”
He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I don’t know.”
I trembled, hugging myself and wishing I didn’t feel so vulnerable.
Hector reached over and squeezed my hand. That warm, tingling energy wrapped around me, making me feel like everything was going to be all right. “I made a promise to you. Know that I will keep you safe, at any cost.”
“But you don’t know me. I can’t ask you to-”
“You don’t have to. I’d do it anyway.”
“Why?” I insisted. “Why would you risk your life for someone you’ve only known less than a month?”
His eyes met mine. “Because we’re connected.”
Without elaborating, he took the wheel in both hands as we rounded a curb at sixty.
I nearly lost my meager dinner as the car lurched, feeling like we were going to tip altogether, but we stayed planted on the ground. The road got curvier the closer we drew to Elysian, and I decided not to distract him further with conversation. It’d be sad if we’d gone to all this trouble trying to escape and ended up dying in a car accident.
Hector’s words echoed in my head. “Connected,” he’d said. How? I’d felt unusually drawn to him, but I’d thought that was merely my lust talking.
Could there be more to it than that?
In no time at all, we were back at Elysian. Hector grabbed his cell along the way once we were in an area that had reception, and he called up the front gate, explaining to them what had happened. When he pulled up along the drive and screeched to a stop, the door was promptly opened, and armed guards pulled me out of the car and escorted me into the building. They formed a protective circle around me as we walked.
Hector spoke with them in hushed tones as they ushered me downstairs. I noticed no students lurked about, which I found unusual, even this late at night.
“The students have been ordered on lockdown, as you requested, sir,” a burly man said, who I assumed was the captain.
“Good,” Hector said with a nod. “I want at least five guards with her at all times, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
I raised a brow. The captain sure didn’t question Hector, like I half expected from policemen, thanks to my run-ins with the D.P.I. “Where are we going?” I hadn’t been in this part of the building before. The appearance was very blasé compared to the elegance throughout the rest of the place, seeming to get blander the lower we went.
“They’re taking you to the emergency bunker,” Hector explained.
“You have a bunker?”
He shrugged. “You never know.”
Wasn’t that the truth? Paranormals were just as guilty as humans for inciting violent wars, made even trickier - and often times, bloodier - thanks to the magic most of them wielded. Though we’d had peace for a century now, it didn’t mean alliances weren’t strained between races, and even within clans, covens, and packs. There would always be politics, no matter the breed, and in that, there would always remain the assurance of war.
Hector’s jaw was set as we walked, a brooding look plastered on his face. “Don’t the incantations and shields protect us from intruders?” I asked.
“Most of the time,” he said. “But until we know exactly what we’re dealing with, I’m not taking any chances.”
We stopped before a large metal door with a security box blinking with several red lights. Hector punched in a code, and the lights turned green before the door slid open.
The room was icy-cold and made completely of metal, judging from the walls of silver steel all around us, like a gigantic panic room. Large florescent lights shone sterile white light down on us, making me squint against their glare.
“You’ll be safe here,” Hector said. His voice echoed around the chamber. “I’m going to help secur
e the perimeter and see if I detect any signatures like what I felt out in the field.”
I clutched his hand, not wanting to let go. “You’re right. We don’t know what Damien is. We don’t know what he’s capable of.”
Including killing Hector or any innocents who got in his way.
Hector smiled and cupped my cheek. “Don’t worry. I won’t be gone long. You’ll only be here until we know it’s safe, promise. Besides,” he wiggled his brows, “I’m a lot stronger than I look.”
Kissing my forehead, he ducked out of the room, and the heavy metal door closed with a metallic click. Five guards had been left in here with me.
I stood there in the awkward silence, shifting my weight and crossing my arms in an attempt to warm myself up from the chill hanging in the air. The metal definitely insulated the room well.
My foot began to tap. It was driving me mad, waiting here, completely helpless to do anything. I made a vow right then to work on my offensive and defensive training, so I could better protect myself. I couldn’t always depend on others to save me.
After a few minutes of no talking, I began pacing, just to have something to do.
The guards looked just as anxious as I felt. To their credit, they continued their steadfast posts, ignoring me for the most part. Except one, who smiled brightly. “I see Hector has a new plaything. What a man. I swear, he can bag more babes than any guy I know.”
I stopped and frowned. “What do you mean ‘plaything?’”
The guard, whom I was dubbing Snaggletooth, thanks to his jacked teeth, grinned. “You know, a ‘romp of the week’ type thing.”
“No, I don’t know,” I snapped. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. “I’m not that kind of girl.”
He laughed. “Oh, honey, you’re all exactly that type of girl when the master gets hold of you.”
I was about to tell him where he could shove his remarks when the lights suddenly went to black.
The sound of guns cocking echoed in the room, along with the thundering of my erratic heart. I struggled to breathe without growing dizzy as we waited. A flashlight clicked on, and one of the guards, whoever had been left in charge, I presumed, ordered them to surround me. They formed a circle with me in the middle, guns pointing toward the darkness.
Something skittered across the metal wall, and they moved to shoot at it. “Hold fire!” the leader commanded. We listened for a few heartbeats, our breathing the only sound in the room.
“Who’s there?” the leader called out.
Silence.
After several long seconds, Snaggletooth sighed. “Probably a false alarm. Those damn power outages lately have - argh!”
A disturbing squishing sound followed thereafter, right before the other guard’s scream was cut off short. It sounded like someone had slopped mud onto the floor.
I screamed as gunfire erupted, sounding like a canon was going off thanks to the reverb in here. The flashlight was dropped, rolling off to the side as low growls and snarls echoed around me, punctuated by the men’s screams.
I shrieked as a gale whipped through the room, chilling me to the bone. The temperature was cold before, but now it had plummeted. I stumbled toward the door, intending to pound on it for all I was worth, when something grabbed my hair and yanked backward.
An ice-cold hand crowned in talons sharp as knives seized my throat, cutting my air off. A sinewy voice sweet as honey whispered into my ear, “I’ve been searching for you, little succubus. You really shouldn’t have tried to run away from me.”
A hot tongue licked my cheek, and I tried screaming but no sound would come. My lungs burned for oxygen as I clawed at the hand, tearing and scraping but unable to break free. “What do you want?” I rasped.
“You,” it hissed in a voice that sounded like nails clawing on a chalkboard.
The strangest thing happened. Just as I felt I was going to turn completely into a Popsicle, the most delicious warmth spread through me. It started at my epicenter and radiated out, converging at that sweet spot between my legs.
I wanted to moan with the pleasure of it. Hell, I would have had the thing not been cutting off my air supply. In the back of my mind, I knew I should be petrified with the fear of dying, but all I could think of was the amazing sensations coursing through me. Almost like… like…
Having sex.
Stars fired before my eyes, and I knew not all the darkness I saw now was from the room.
I was going to die.
Hector, Monique, Raoul, Angela. I’d miss them all. I’d miss an eternity of love, laughter, and friendship. That cut through the fog, screaming at me to fight.
Desperate, I feebly clawed at my assailant. “Please… don’t…” I begged.
They were the last words I heard before blacking out.
Chapter 12
MY MIND VAGUELY REGISTERED the sensation of fire and the smell of smoke riding the air.
Someone was calling my name, sounding far away.
I floated through the darkness, toward the sound. I knew that voice… like warm sunshine melting away the frost…
I came to with a gasp as my lungs fought to gulp as much sweet air as possible.
Something very warm to the touch cradled me, pressing sweat-dampened strands of hair back from my face. “Sally, I’m right here. Thank God you’re awake.”
It took a moment for Hector to focus. “What… happened?”
Fear made his features tight. “You were attacked.”
With my head still feeling like it was stuffed with cotton, it took a moment for my memories to resurface. And boy when they hit, terror slapped me so hard I nearly passed out again.
I clung to Hector, frantically searching the now lit room for any sign of that thing, but it was only us and the guards. The air reeked of so much blood, I thought I may vomit.
“Where did it go?” I asked, my voice quivering.
“Whatever it was, it’s long gone,” he said. “Do you remember anything?”
“I… I remember freezing. Then feeling this darkness take hold of me. It had claws. It said it was after me.”
His brows furrowed as his eyes flashed fire again. “After you?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I pushed back bile. “You want to know the most twisted part? I sort of wanted it to take me. Like it… kind of turned me on… as it was killing me.”
Disgust and shock registered on Hector’s face.
Before he could ask me what kind of crack I’d been smoking, Dean Prescott whooshed into the room, looking like he’d just rolled out of bed. “What the hell’s going on here? Aurelius, you’d better have a damn good explanation for this. First, I find out you’ve placed the entire campus under house arrest, then I can feel the whole building shaking, like a bomb’s going off. What happened?”
Hector stood, cradling me to him. Which I was thankful for, because I didn’t think I was strong enough to stand on my own, not with my knees shaking this badly. “We were out on a field observation when this hybrid came out of nowhere and attacked us.”
“A hybrid,” Prescott said flatly.
“Yes, a hybrid,” I snapped, anger flaring. “Seeing as you are one yourself, I don’t see how that’s so hard to grasp.”
Hector’s grip tightened on my arm, warning me to keep my mouth shut.
Prescott stared me down, like he could peer right into my head if he squinted hard enough. “Yes, I’m a hybrid,” he finally said. “They are out there. We’re not as uncommon as we seem. We just tend not to get all the glory full-blooded sups do.”
Was that a hint of bitterness I detected?
“So this hybrid followed you back to the grounds?” Prescott said, the tone of his voice saying he didn’t believe us in the least.
“Something followed us here,” Hector said. “Or rather, something attacked Sally in a secured bunker, and it took out five of our best men.”
“That’s impossible,” Prescott said dismissively. “Nothing has ever breached the barriers of this school in o
ver five hundred years.”
“Unless,” I said, thoughts spinning, “the hybrid was already here to begin with.”
They both stared at me. “You’re suggesting it could be a student?” Prescott said.
“Or a teacher,” I returned evenly, not blinking an eye.
“Are you insinuating my staff could be responsible for this?” Prescott sneered.
“You have to admit it’s possible,” Hector interjected. “The spells only let through those who have permission to be here. That includes all staff, security personnel, teachers, and students.”
Prescott pursed his lips, then ran a hand over his face. “Fine. Because of the incident involving the were girl, I’ll have to report this to the D.P.I., since the cases could be linked. What a mess. We’ll be lucky if that packmaster doesn’t sue us.”
My jaw dropped. “One of your students was brutally murdered, and I was nearly killed, and you’re worried about a lawsuit?”
“This school has a reputation to protect,” Prescott said, as if that should have been the first thought on my mind. “If attacks like this continue, we won’t get funding to stay open.”
I glared at him. “I’d think a teacher - the dean, no less - would be more concerned about protecting his students than his job.”
“Sally,” Hector warned.
“Enough,” Prescott hissed. “I don’t have to explain my thinking to a succubus.”
So he was of the party that looked down on us as the “whores of the Underworld.” No wonder he and Hector didn’t get along.
“Aurelius,” Prescott said, “since Ms. Sanders can’t seem to stay out of trouble, I want her under your watch twenty-four-seven. If she steps out of line, you’ll be responsible.”
Not that I was complaining about being babysat by Hector, but I couldn’t help but feel insulted by what he just said. He was acting like the attacks were my fault, like I’d asked for this. Typical thinking from other sups when it came to succubi and incubi. We received little pity from our peers, no matter the circumstances.
“I understand,” Hector said, tone unwavering to Prescott’s challenging stare.
Prescott sneered at us, then walked off, barking for someone to “clean up this mess,” with “the mess” being the guards who’d died trying to protect me.
