“I beg your pardon. It’s not as if I can control the weather.”
Alex’s deep chuckle rumbled in his muscular chest. “I realize you’re not to blame. A nor’easter blew in just as we were ready to leave. Damn thing kept us stuck at the airport for two days. It isn’t comfortable waiting on a plane for the weather to clear.”
“Perhaps you might have preferred sleeping in the terminal with all of its windows to allow the sunlight on you during the day. If my jet isn’t good enough for you, then you don’t have to use it, you know. Maybe you’d prefer to fly back on a commercial airline that only runs during the daylight hours.”
Alex raised both hands in surrender. “Hey now, no reason to get your panties in a wad. I was just kidding. Actually, your plane was very…” He wagged his blond eyebrows. “…accommodating.”
A smile broke the seriousness on Stephan’s face. “I’ve never had any complaints.”
The three males made their way back to the great room. Alexander brought up the rear. At six feet, he was not only the shortest of the males on the Alpha Council, but also the youngest. However, what he lacked in height and experience, he made up for in knowledge. He was the go-to guy for all things mechanical or technological. A genius with computers, he could hack his way into a government database. And he could turn a wrench like a carnie could turn a phrase.
“Sit.” Demetri gestured to one of the plaid chairs that outlined the Navajo throw rug.
Alex complied, laying one ankle on his opposite knee as he took in the large log cabin, tucked away on the middle of the mountainside. The walls, like Demetri, were hard and abrasive. The wood grain, rough and unfinished, gave the home a rustic look. Upon the walls, wool tapestries hung, depicting scenes of the wilderness and hunting. The ceiling was made of thick arched timbers, roughly cut, both functional and decorative. An antler chandelier hung from the ceiling to illuminate the room.
Demetri sat on the leather couch, directly across from the fire roaring under the stone mantel, and stretched his legs out, resting them on the square coffee table that stood in the middle of the large rug. The plain wooden table easily bore the heavy weight of his legs which crossed at the ankles. “So, Stephan, do you want to share what we found with Alexander or should I?”
Stephan grabbed his brandy from the table and leaned back in one of the plaid chairs. Settling his back against the cushion, he raised his glass in salute. “Go ahead, be my guest.”
Demetri explained the unusual scene they had come across in the forest and the unique scents. He shared the strange roar they heard as well as the information about the paw prints and how a footprint seemed to disappear under the side of the mountain.
Alex leaned forward with interest as Demetri regaled him with a description of the empty space where neither he nor Stephan could detect anything. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. You’re telling me neither of you could sense anything?”
Stephan swallowed the last drop from his snifter. “That’s right. It was empty, blank.”
The blond Alpha shook his head.
“We thought perhaps there might be a deposit of titanium running through the mountain,” offered Demetri as he rose to refill Stephan’s drink. “Do you want anything while I’m up, Alex? A drink or perhaps you’d like something to eat?”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” Alex turned his attention back to Stephan. “So what do we do now?”
“Nothing more to do tonight. We’ll rest during the day and resume our patrols of the area tomorrow.”
“What about that little filly? What was her name?”
Demetri returned to the couch with a decanter of brandy for his friend and a glass of vodka for himself. He poured some brandy into Stephan’s snifter and set the bottle down on the table before he answered. “The vampire or the human?”
“Hold up. A vampire has gone missing, too?” Alex asked in disbelief, his azure eyes wide.
“Yes, comrade, that’s one of the reasons we called you in.” Demetri took a drink of the vodka.
“Maybe you better fill me in from the beginning and bring me up to speed.”
Stephan cradled his sifter between his palms. “It began with a series of animal attacks. At least that was what the local papers called them. We believe it may have been something other than an animal that attacked the humans.”
“A vampire?”
“We’re not sure,” continued Stephan. “That’s why I came out here. Demetri tried to find what was attacking the population, but he couldn’t cover enough ground by himself. I came out to help, but the two of us haven’t had much luck.
“We went to the coroner’s office and got a look at one victim. The man in his early twenties had his throat ripped out, but according to the autopsy report, his blood loss had been at a minimum, no more was lost than would have pumped out naturally until his heart stopped. There was also a second gash across his stomach. He was practically disemboweled.”
Alex ran a hand through his short strands that were swept back on the sides away from his face. “That doesn’t sound like a vampire.”
“That is what we thought,” said Demetri taking up the story. “So Stephan and I pulled the reports of the other victims. Same MO. Each time, stomach was sliced, throat torn, but enough blood remained in the bodies to make a vampire attack seem unlikely.
“Then there is the young human woman who went missing. Wondering if her disappearance might be related to the attacks, Stephan and I walked the trails, but we did not find any sign of the woman or any indication she had been injured.”
Stephan pushed from his chair and stood beside the fire. “Then the female vampire vanished.”
“Aase,” Demetri supplied as Stephan nodded his head in agreement.
“I spoke to Aase’s family. Her heartmate told me she had recently found out she was going to have a baby.”
Alex gasped. “A natural-born offspring!”
“Exactly,” said Demetri. “That is why we must find her before something can happen to her or the baby. A vampiric birth is too rare, a treasure to be protected. We must find the female, make sure she and her baby are safe.”
“Do you have any idea where she might be?”
Stephan clasped his hands behind his back and paced the length of the flagstone. “She and her heartmate were visiting family with their daughter in a town not too far from here. We were there last evening, but had no luck locating her. Demetri and I thought perhaps the two missing women were connected somehow, so we focused our search this evening in an area of forest that lies between the location where the human vanished and the town where the vampire was visiting.”
“Sounds like a lot of ground to cover.”
“Exactly. That’s why we brought you in. Three can cover more area than one. We were also hoping you might be able to do some surveillance from the sky.”
Alexander’s face brightened, a smile caused a dimple to appear in his left cheek. “Hack into a surveillance satellite? Shit yeah! Just show me to your computer.”
****
Tears streamed from both eyes to pool on the metal table when the torturer slowly drew the needle from her eye. He removed the metal lid calipers that held open the eye and turned, taking his latest specimen to the table where his microscope sat. He scrubbed his neck as if trying to work out his latest kink.
Aase lay strapped to the table. Her body sore from the numerous wounds it had been subjected to. She knew she bled in several places because she smelled the blood, felt its warmth dripping down her cold, naked body. Her arms lay strapped above her head and her ankles bound.
Her captors had not brought her any food or blood. She’d overheard them talking, saying it was part of the experiment to starve her. Her body needed sustenance, not only to heal but to supply for the babe growing in her belly.
Silent sobs shook her body when she thought of her unborn child. For over two hundred years, she and her heartmate had waited to be blessed by the miracle. As with other women who were con
verted into vampirism, her uterus had been damaged during the transition. After two centuries, she and her mate had given up hope of ever having a child. Then their tiny miracle happened. They were blessed with a beautiful daughter with raven hair that was the joy of their lives.
Never expecting to receive a second miracle, she’d overlooked the first signs of pregnancy until a few weeks ago when, during a routine trip to a doctor, she discovered she was pregnant again. The night she told her heartmate about the impending birth, he swept her into his arms and twirled her around the room. A smile tried to pull at her swollen lips as the reverie took her.
The pain in her dry lips pulled her back to the present. Her heart clenched as she wondered what her daughter might be doing at that very moment. She hoped she was playing. Or maybe her father was reading a book to her. She loved her child with every cell of her being and hoped to hold her second child one day if she could survive this torture.
Can you hear me, my love? Please hear me. Come save me.
As usual, the connection to her husband, just as all the others she’d tried, didn’t work. There was nothing. She didn’t sense him or anyone through a mindlink. The monster’s female companion had mentioned something about doing a spell of some kind to block communication. But Aase couldn’t remember the particulars, because, when the conversation had taken place, she’d just awakened from a drug-induced sleep to discover she’d been kidnapped.
Escape from this madman became priority one. Her daughter and baby needed her. In danger of losing her beloved baby from the wounds being inflicted on her, she must find a means of escape. She’d tell her captor anything, if he’d let her go.
Pain raced to her brain when Aase turned her head toward the man standing across the room. Her neck muscles burned from having spent most of the day lying face down as the skin was taken from her back and needles were pushed into her spine. She opened her chapped lips, the skin pulled taut, cracking open in two places. When she tried to call out, her vocal chords, damaged from days of screaming, allowed only a small rasp to come from her bleeding lips. She closed her eyes against the pain and frustration.
The soft clicking of heels against the rock floor brought her eyes open. The female vampire watched as the male with the dark, reddish-black hair approached. Aase swallowed gingerly, licked her lips, and hoped her saliva would help heal them. She moved her lips forming silent words when the monster looked down on her sunken face.
“You trying to say something?” he asked.
She nodded her head only once, the effort excruciating.
“You can’t talk?”
She turned her head from side to side, wincing from the painful movement.
“If I give you a little blood will you be able to speak?”
She nodded again, closing her eyes to the pain.
Aase listened as he walked away, opened a cabinet door and closed it again before walking back to where she lay. She peeked at the monster when he snipped the corner of a bag of blood and held it to her lips. The crimson liquid slid over her teeth and gums. It tasted thick and rich when she swallowed the tiny amount, no more than a tablespoon. When it hit her stomach, all cells cried for more.
“More,” she whispered.
He obliged, tipping the bag briefly to her lips. This sip was just large enough to bring her cells some much needed nutrients. They struggled to feed from the tiny amount, each fighting for life. Her baby’s heartbeat grew stronger as her body fed it first.
“More,” Aase whispered again.
The monster shook his head from side to side. A lock of his slick hair escaped its place to rest on his forehead. He brushed it back with a careless sweep of his hand as he spoke. “First tell me what you mouthed.”
Aase took a deep breath. A rush of stale air filled her lungs. When her voice came, it sounded no louder than a hummingbird’s wings. “I asked you why you haven’t asked me any questions.”
The torturer’s dark brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You seem to be looking for something. Why don’t you just ask me? I’ll tell you anything.”
He scrubbed a thoughtful hand across his stubbled chin, and Aase tried to push into his mind to glean his thoughts, but like her attempts to use her mindlink to contact her heartmate, it failed. A tear ran down her face. She was too weak to use her power, and the damned titanium restraints kept her from dematerializing.
“Ask me anything,” she said, desperate to keep him talking and not hurting her.
“If you are willing to talk, I indeed have questions. But I’ll warn you, lie to me, and you’ll be sorry.”
As if anything could be worse than what she’d already been through.
Their eyes met. “An easy question to start then. How do humans become vampire?”
“We believe it is a mutation of the virus that caused the Bubonic Plague. The first known vampires were made during the plague. Our scientists hypothesized the virus mutated and caused vampirism.”
“Plausible theory.” The male ran his fingers through his slicked back hair. “Why do you need blood?”
“The virus changes our hearts, enlarging them. It also enlarges our lungs and muscles. The extra muscle fibers need more blood to fuel our strength. The larger lungs push more oxygen through our bodies. Our bodies can’t produce enough blood to supply the need on their own, so we need to drink some to keep our bodies functioning properly. Can I have more blood now?”
Ignoring the request, the maniac continued with his interrogation. “What happens if you don’t get blood every day?”
“We can survive for a while without blood, but starvation weakens us. Our bodies conserve energy much the same way human bodies slowly shut down when they go without food.”
He nodded his head. “I had already noticed the physical changes in you due to the starvation. Since you seem to be telling me the truth, let’s keep going. How does a human become infected with the vampiric virus?”
“To convert someone we must take their blood while they take ours.”
“Like a transfusion?”
“Yes, but it takes a while. The vampire and human must form a blood circle. Their blood circulates through their bodies until it mixes thoroughly enough. Once enough of the virus is in the human blood it will change the person.”
“So the human is infected by the vampire…Interesting.”
“In a way, I guess, but we don’t think of it in those terms.”
The male leaned his arms on the table, allowing the metal to bear some of his weight. “What about taking the blood? How do you keep the blood from coagulating?”
“Our fangs produce a type of venom. It is injected while we feed, preventing the blood from congealing.”
“And how do you get the blood to stop?”
“Our saliva. It has a healing agent in it,” Aase answered truthfully.
“Easy enough to test,” said the male. “I’ll collect a sample of your saliva and test it on an open wound. All right. Answer me this. Why do vampires never get sick?”
Oh course, he would eventually ask a question she didn’t know the answer to. Aase’s hope fell to the floor like a leaden weight. She needed time to devise a plausible answer. “Will you let me go if I tell you?” she countered.
The monster glared down at her in surprise then a twisted smile curved his lips. “Yes. Tell me, and I’ll let you go.”
Aase doubted her captor, but desperation to save her unborn child kept hope alive. “What assurances do I have that you will let us go?”
She bit her lip realizing too late her mistake in using the plural.
His eyes widened and traveled from her face down to her belly. He straightened to his full height and reached a hand out to touch the sensitive flesh. Aase jerked, instinctually trying to draw away from his touch. Her restraints prevented her movement. They grated against her skin, chafed her wrists and ankles, and sent a sobering sensation of pain through her body. Tears welled in her eyes as much from fear as from actu
al pain.
His eyes still riveted on her stomach he simply stated, “You’re pregnant.”
Though it wasn’t a question Aase was desperate to deny the accusation. “No! Vampires can’t get pregnant,” she lied as her eyes no longer contained the pool of tears.
He turned from the metal examining table. “I think you are lying. I warned you about lying to me.”
He wheeled a metal tray full of instruments over to where she lay. “It will be easy enough to ascertain whether or not you are pregnant.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked in a weak voice as her body trembled in terror.
Lane snapped on a pair of black latex gloves then picked up a scalpel from the tray, turning it so the numerous torch lights around the room reflected off its shiny surface. He leaned over, placing the scalpel beside her eye, giving her a good view of it as he whispered, “You’ll see.”
Chapter 28
Nicholai’s eyes snapped open. The Alpha sat straight up in his bed, the sheet falling from his bare chest. Julie’s in trouble. She needs me.
His breaths came in gasps as he tried desperately to calm his nervous system to concentrate.
Think, he commanded himself. What did she say her plans were today?
As he remembered her intentions to go to the GUM, he glanced over at the clock sitting on the bedside table. It was dusk. They had arranged to meet within the hour to go out on a date. Surely, she would be in her hotel room getting ready.
Nicholai threw the covers from his body and used his preternatural speed to dress, throwing on the first thing he found. He didn’t have time to waste driving to the inn. Instead, he decided to materialize there. Spurred on by urgency, he didn’t care if someone saw him. He needed to be with his heartmate. Now! Besides, if someone did see him, he’d erase that person’s memory.
He took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly, focusing his power. He drew into himself, his form shrinking until only a tiny dark dot remained which popped from the room.
A moment later, his strong arms enfolded Julie in a steel embrace that drew her back against his body. “I’m here, lastochka.”
Alpha Lover Page 18
