by Anthology
“You’re Cambridge Sutton,” she managed, her voice sounding small.
She knew why he was in Columbus. He and a team of BPI agents had been sent to help try to oversee the peace talks. The media had covered their arrival as if royalty had arrived. She just wasn’t sure why he was in the alley alone. He always seemed to have bodyguards around him in photos and video clips. For a fraction of a second, she pictured herself the damsel in distress, the woman in the horror movies who was running to her death in heels. Had she just run straight into a dark, deserted alley to be a celebrity vampire’s evening snack?
She didn’t have time to worry about it all. Lives mattered. “Get everyone out of the building and alley.”
His piercing, dark eyes bored into her. He said nothing as he reached out, his hands finding her shoulders. For a second, the world around her stopped being as it was and filled with vibrant white flecks. She thought he’d laid a vampire whammy on her, mind melding her, or something dramatic.
“I cannot read you,” he said, sounding as shocked as she felt. “Who are you?”
“Did you hear me? I said you have to get everyone out of the building.”
He didn’t budge. “Humans with signs do not scare us. The peace talks will continue as planned.”
“This is so much bigger than protests.”
He raked his gaze over her slowly.
“Focus.”
He grinned. “I am.”
“Dude, when you got turned, did it leave you brain damaged?” she asked, before thinking better of it. He was considered a master vampire, a guy one didn’t mess with lightly.
He quirked a brow. “Dude?”
“Do you want to become vamp goop? That would suck, buddy. Plus, I’m too young to die, so can you tap into that vamp speed I know you all have and go pull a fire alarm or something?”
“Vamp goop?” he echoed.
Yep, his siring must have left him brain damaged.
“I have information about a bomb threat. It is very credible. Trust me. There is a bomb. Maybe more than one even. The people behind this do not play around.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “That would explain your vamp goop reference then.”
Desperation coated her every move as she put her hand over his and released her magik, wanting him to understand she was on his side, that she wasn’t one of the human purists. He gasped.
She cursed her lack of experience with her magik as her power spilled out of her at a rate she couldn’t control. “Get them to safety. Bombs go boom. Vamps go goop. Understand?”
He released her and was gone in the blink of an eye. Cassie staggered, her power still flowing freely from her. Try as she might, she couldn’t get a handle on it. She touched the building next to her and tried to get her bearings. It didn’t work.
She felt it then, the danger, the time running out on Albert’s scheme. She hadn’t been fast enough. The place was going to blow and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Suddenly, Cambridge was there again, this time at the other end of the alley, shuffling people from the building with the aid of a tall, brown-haired man and a petite, redheaded woman.
Relief rushed through Cassie and grossly inappropriate laughter came over her, making her giggle. The laughter took hold of her as her magik drained her rapidly.
“You bitch!”
She twisted in time to see one of her stepfather’s followers there, a gun in hand, aiming at her while he held a small piece of plastic in his other hand. He had on a large jacket. A very large jacket. Something niggled in the back of her mind. As her magik-induced fog lifted slightly from her thoughts, she realized he wasn’t holding a piece of plastic. It was a detonator and he had on the oversized coat because he was a walking weapon.
She gasped, ready for the end to come as she watched in what felt like slow motion as the man pressed his thumb down on the detonator.
There was a huge boom, followed by heat. Her feet were swept out from under her as something struck her hard.
This is death, she thought, strangely at peace with her choice. Cassie had wanted to make a difference, wanted to do something to stop the violence, and it was going to cost her life. That being said, she might have saved the lives of innocent supernaturals and that meant something to her.
The world spun and a distant-sounding ringing started in her ears. Opening her eyes, she glanced up, disoriented. Large dark eyes stared down at her as raven-colored, shoulder-length hair fell partially into the face of an angel.
Not an angel.
A vampire.
She sucked in a painful breath.
Cambridge had her?
He was shaking his head and speaking to her, but she couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything beyond the ringing. Pain ebbed up her body, slowly at first and then faster. Crying out, she clung to his arm.
“I forbid you from dying,” he said, his voice sounding as if he was across the street, not holding her in his arms. “Draw upon your magik.”
She closed her eyes and his shouts became clearer and louder. The jerk was actually ordering her to obey him. Was he for real?
“Cambridge, she’s badly hurt,” said another man just out of Cassie’s range of vision.
“Is she breathin’?” another asked, this one with a Scottish brogue.
“Oh dear, she’s covered in blood,” a woman said.
“I do nae think it’s hers, Mimi,” said the Scottish man. “At least, most of it isnae hers.”
“Cambridge, you’re bleeding!” the woman shouted.
“I will be fine,” Cambridge said, his voice deep and even. “Baldwin, have a BPI ambulance brought here at once. Is the area secure?”
“I’ve already called in the request for first responders,” the Scotsman answered. “How badly are you hurt?”
“I said I was fine,” returned Cambridge with a snarl.
“Moody much?” asked the other man she could only assume was named Baldwin.
“Och, yer nae fine, Sutton,” snapped Finn. “You ran headfirst at a bomber and then took the brunt of the blast to protect a protestor.”
He’d done what?
Was he mad?
Nope. Brain damage from siring. Has to be it.
Cassie tried and failed to lift her hand to touch Cambridge. She had to see how hurt he was, but none of her limbs were working properly. Worry rushed over her for a man she barely knew. It didn’t matter that she basically knew only things the media reported about him. There was a connection to him she couldn’t explain, and fear for his safety grabbed hold and rooted deep in her.
He took her hand in his, his thumb caressing the back of her hand in the process. It was a warm, caring gesture that she very much needed at the moment. “Shh, I am fine. A piece of shrapnel caught my side. There is blood. A good deal, but I assure you it is nothing to be concerned about. Stop worrying so loudly.”
“She dinnae say anythin’,” said Finn.
“Cambridge, can you read her thoughts?” asked the woman.
“No,” said Cambridge softly. “I just sensed her worrying for me.”
“I thought that only worked if someone is your mate,” added Mimi, easing closer to them.
“Shit,” muttered Finn. “Tell me yer mate is nae a purist, protesting bitch.”
Baldwin whistled loud and long. “Met his mate with a hell of a bang. Nice. Too bad she’s a human purist. That might not go over so well.”
Cambridge growled. “She is not with them. She is the one who warned me. The one who made it possible for us to evacuate the building in time.”
“Aye, and evacuate right to where a bomber was standing.”
No sooner did the words leave his mouth than a giant boom went off, causing the ground to shake. Cassie’s power flared, feeling as it were going to make her spontaneously combust. Heat tore through her, but it brought no pain. She knew her power was reaching out and around her, but she didn’t know what it was doing or how many it might hurt in the p
rocess.
Cambridge threw himself over her and Cassie caught movement from the corner of her eye. She saw the small, redheaded woman being knocked to the ground and covered by the brown-haired man she’d seen earlier, and then the world around her went dark.
3
Sit and spin “vamp boy”
Cambridge couldn’t look away from the woman in the bed he’d been calling his own for the past few weeks. When the decision had been made to send himself and a small team of agents to Ohio to deal with the uprising and to oversee the peace talks, Cambridge had been less than pleased. While he held no particular fondness for Chicago, Columbus appealed to him less.
BPI was huge, spanning the globe, and each major city had one main person who was in charge and then a council that was directly under him. In Chicago, Cambridge was part of the council. Still didn’t seem to gain him much pull. He had lobbied to no avail to have one of his other brothers or even another head of BPI to go in his place. He’d had no luck on the matter. Sitting before the beauty resting safely on his bed, he’d never been more thankful that he’d not gotten his way. He’d have missed out on her.
He had to wonder if fate had a hand in it, as Cambridge normally got exactly what he wanted. This time it appeared he’d gotten what he’d needed.
My mate.
His entire body reacted to the thought, the same as it had upon first glimpsing her in the alley. He’d been in the building, ready to demand each side of the peace negotiations shut their mouths and listen as he spoke, but the overwhelming urge to leave the room had hit him like a crashing tidal wave. He’d been unable to ignore it.
Baldwin had been close and seen Cambridge falter, wavering in his mission, something Cambridge wasn’t known to ever do. He’d given in to the baser need to leave the meeting room, with no clue where he was headed—he’d simply followed his gut. His gut led him to her.
My mate.
The concept was difficult to wrap his mind around. He’d lived such a long life, never even considering he’d find his mate. It was such a rare thing. The idea of never being with the one destined for him had meant little to him up until about a year ago, when Cornell, his brother, had been the first of the Sutton boys to find his mate.
Seeing Cornell with Dani and how happy they were as they awaited the birth of their first child had changed something deep within Cambridge. He’d begun to long for something similar, hiding his wants under thinly veiled attempts, dating any woman who caught his fancy and some who didn’t.
All the while, his mate had been here, in Ohio, and from the information presented to him regarding what they’d uncovered about her identity, she’d been living with human purists.
Yet, she was not human.
Far from it.
From the pulse of power she’d sent over him before the second bomb went off, he’d hazarded a guess that she had more than just a little supernatural blood in her. She was at least half. She had to be. One didn’t possess that much power without a decent amount of supernatural in them.
She’d saved so many of his kind, and humans as well. Whatever the truth was, he didn’t believe for a second that she was filled with hate. His instincts told him she was in danger now, from the very same sickos who had tried to kill so many.
His rage built and he snarled, his tongue running over his fangs. He and his demon agreed on one thing—kill anyone who might think to harm her.
Her long, chestnut brown hair fanned out across his pillows. He wanted to run his fingers through the curls. His reaction to the woman had been visceral. From the moment he’d laid eyes upon her in the alley, he’d wanted her. He wanted to possess her. To sink into her and lose himself in her body.
And her scent drove him wild with raw need. It was all he could do to keep from taking what he wanted this very second. Cassie made it hard for him to remember his pedigree. Hard for him to remember to be collected and cool, as all knew him to be. What was it they always said about him around the office?
Ah yes, he was a bigger stick-in-the-mud than his brothers who were viewed as uptight, by-the-rules kind of guys. As he raked his hungry gaze over the woman before him, all he wanted to do was throw caution to the wind and toss out all the rules he lived by.
As a man famed for keeping attractive women around him, Cambridge was no stranger to sexy, but this woman was so much more so than any others. When she’d looked up at him, her green eyes wide, her magik pulsing over him, and her plea for him to save the others, he’d fought the need to kiss her. To sample her full lips for himself. It hadn’t been the time or the place.
Now wasn’t exactly the time, but he could think of no better place than in his bed. He was about to give in and touch her when the door to his room opened and Finn appeared. The fellow vampire had been doing that all day and night, ever since they’d brought Cassie there following the explosions—entering at random. Cambridge wasn’t clear on what Finn kept expecting to find, so he’d spent the greater part of the day and evening mocking Finn’s sweater choice.
This latest one had a reindeer on the front of it.
Cambridge sighed. “I have not eaten her. Stand down.”
“Och, ‘tis nae you I’m worried about. You say she’s nae with the protestors, but I’ve already told you that information has come in linking her directly to one of the heads of the purist group in this region. I’m a wee bit concerned she’ll stake you.”
Cambridge touched her hair and it was all he’d hoped it would be. He let it slide through his fingers, his gaze on her. Cassie McGowan—that was who they had uncovered she was. Twenty-two-year-old student at the university, in her last year of Art. And daughter to Albert McGowan, known purist and terrorist. Albert had been vocal in his disdain for the peace negotiations. He’d been doing the local media circuit, drumming up supporters for his cause along the way.
Finn moved up and stood near the side of the bed where Cambridge was currently sitting. “She’s a risk.”
“No,” Cambridge said with absolute conviction. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t in league with the enemy. “She is not.”
“You cannae be sure. Why did you bring her here, to where we’re stayin’? The BPI in Columbus has an infirmary and a cell.”
“Oh, would you two stop already,” said Mimi, an edge of impatience evident in her tone as she entered the room with a tray of food and drink. “Baldwin said to tell you that he’s still helping with the investigation at the bombing site. Oh, and I brought cookies and cocoa.”
Finn groaned. “Do nae be makin’ me drink any more of that. It rots my gut.”
“No,” snapped Mimi, never wavering. “Drinking blood from that drunken fraternity boy rotted your gut. My cocoa had nothing to do with it.”
“Yer right,” said Finn. “He was tasty goin’ down, but nae so guid comin’ back up.” Finn tapped his chest with his fist and belched. “The locals said nae to eat the buckeyes. Next time I’ll listen.”
Mimi groaned. “Pig.”
“Vamp,” corrected Finn.
Cambridge was about to reprimand them both and throw them out of the room when Cassie stirred, her vivid green eyes snapping open, fright filling them quickly. He lifted a hand and touched her pale cheek, wanting her to know she wasn’t in danger. That she would be protected at all costs. “Shh, you are safe and well.”
Soothing another didn’t exactly come naturally to him. He wasn’t really a nurturer per se.
She glanced around frantically. “The others. Did Albert’s people kill them?”
“Hopeful?” asked Finn, crossing his arms over his reindeer covered chest.
“What? No,” she shouted.
She sat up in the bed and Cambridge shot Mimi a dark look when he noticed what Mimi had put Cassie in—a nightgown that barely covered anything and looked remarkably like a naughty Mrs. Claus outfit. When Cambridge had suggested Mimi go and find Cassie something to wear, since her clothing was ruined during the explosions, this was not what he’d had in m
ind. It was certainly form fitting and looked amazing on her, but he’d been thinking more along the lines of something sophisticated, something that would cover all of her, helping him to resist the temptation the young woman presented.
Mimi winked at him.
Cassie glanced down at herself, her expression unreadable. Her gaze whipped to him. “You put me in holiday porn-wear? Pervert.”
Pervert?
He wanted distance, and quick, to help her realize he wasn’t some weirdo. Unfortunately, in his rush to move away, his limbs became uncharacteristically tangled and he nearly fell off the bed as he moved to step back. Finn’s laugher echoed around him. Cambridge elbowed his longtime friend and then tossed his hands up. “No. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Well, I would, but I didn’t.”
Finn laughed harder. “That’s it, Sutton, tie yer tongue up some more. Might not seem like a total perv then. Just a wee bit of one.”
“Do not make me tear your heart out,” said Cambridge with a grunt.
Finn laughed more.
“I will force-feed you cookies and cocoa,” warned Cambridge, shutting Finn up instantly.
Mimi moved past them both, tray in hand, a smile upon her face. “Nonsense. I dressed you. It would have been super creepy for me to let Cambridge do it, especially with how he’s been acting around you.”
“It’s creepy that any of you dressed me,” answered Cassie, her voice low. It was clear she was scared.
Shrugging, Mimi set the tray on the edge of the bed. “If you’d rather I go get the tattered remnants of your clothing out of the trash, I can, but you should know the nightie covers more than what was left of what you were wearing.”
Cassie swallowed hard and then ran a hand over her leg, making Cambridge’s cock spring to life. He shifted uncomfortably next to Finn who was still snickering under his breath like a small child. “How am I not burnt to a crisp?”
“Cambridge saved your life,” said Mimi, holding a mug of cocoa out to Cassie. “But you wouldn’t have burned to death. Not with what you are. You would have probably just blown to bits or something.”
