“What makes you so special, luv?” His skeletal finger traced along my collarbone.
My stomach knotted. Enemy. Unlike my run-in with Stella, my gut warned revealing my identity this time would worsen the situation. This evil, undead dude clearly hated my uncle.
“What’s that?” He cocked his head to one side, mocking me. “Can’t hear you, luv.”
Derisive snickers from the audience.
“Stop touching me.” I hit him with a hostile glare.
More guffaws from the room. Angry growls from Alexander, still squished to the floor.
Dixon bared his teeth, flashing major fang. “Ah, the little kitty has claws.” His face neared mine, fingers curled around my shoulder, digging in. “You want me to stop?”
Fear hammered my heart, but anger boiled my gut. Fresh out of a coma and on my first date with a hot, new guy and this monster dared ruin my evening? Hurt my friends? Hell, no. “Well, duh,” I snapped.
Surprised gasps from the audience.
Dixon grinned. “Oh indeed, you are special. Yes, The Warden likes his food a little spicy. As do I.” He released my shoulder and pulled back his power.
I climbed to my feet. “I’m no one’s snack.” I scanned him for a physical weakness to exploit. Eyes, nose, knees, groin. Nothing. He was old and strong in the preternatural power department, and I had no clue how to activate mine.
He circled me. “No?”
I shifted to keep him in sight. He was enjoying this chitchat. Did all vampires play with their food? If it would keep him from the neck munching, I’d keep talking while I worked on an exit strategy. Or maybe Faith would get a psychic hit and send in the super-powered cavalry.
Dixon stroked his chin. “But you are something. Human, and yet more.”
More than human. Mostly human. First Thomas and now this nut job? I’d ask Thomas about it. If I lived through this.
Dixon ceased his circling and we faced off again. I fell into fighting stance.
His blue lips curled into a cruel smile. “Let’s have a closer look at you.”
Shit. I lashed out with a front kick. He sidestepped with supernatural speed and grabbed my arms, slamming me onto one of the few remaining unbroken tables. Pain shot through my body. I cried out.
Shouts from Alexander. A dull whack! Followed by silence.
For the first time in my life, I prayed. Dear God, please don’t let him be dead. Or more dead. Or full-on dead. Or, oh, you know what I mean.
Dixon loomed over me, eyes glowing like silver moonlight, trapping me in their glare. I thrashed under his scrutiny and he tightened his grip on my arms.
He could crush my bones to dust. Fear flared down my spine. I froze.
He nuzzled my wrists, teasing the healing pink flesh. “Tell me, kitty, who feasted on your intoxicating flesh?”
I clenched my teeth. I will not scream for you. You’d like that too much.
He dropped my arms and stepped back. “It was a dinner for two. The Warden, I’m sure, and?”
I scrambled off the table, resisting the urge to rub my wrists. “None of your business. And stop calling me kitty.”
Dixon raised an eyebrow. “You wish to give me your name? Of your own free will?”
No sounds from the audience this time, only a hushed anticipation.
I sensed a trap, but would play along to buy a little more survival time. “I give you nothing, vampire. What will you give to know me?”
Dixon stilled, an undead statue.
“What’s that?” I mocked in a bad English accent, hand to one ear. “Can’t hear you.”
Dixon’s eyes blackened, pupil swallowing silver iris. “Who are you?”
The crowd inched forward.
“Don’t get out of the graveyard much, do you?” I hedged, my bravado cracking.
“You will tell me,” Dixon threatened.
Fog flowed into the restaurant on a chill wind. It snaked around my body and drew me toward the vampire. His fangs elongated. He palmed my face. The nails were longer now, sharper and—
“Dixon, my darling,” a female voice interrupted. “What on earth are you doing to that little piece of meat?”
Eight
Stella stood in the doorway dressed in tough-girl chic. Black cat suit. Combat boots. Long black leather coat. There appeared to be two black poles sticking out of her back from some kind of holster.
Dixon rushed to her in super speed. “Stella, my dear. What a glorious surprise. What are you doing here in the States? In San Francisco?”
The fog holding me captive dissipated. I tried to make a run for it, but the minion I’d stabbed caught my arm and hissed.
“My Mistress called. I came,” Stella replied to Dixon. They kissed the air next to each other’s cheeks.
“Isabella here, too? How wonderful,” Dixon exclaimed, with false delight.
“It surprises me you are unaware of her presence. Or that you dare speak her name so casually.” Stella’s eyes strayed to me.
Dixon gave her blank face. “Oh, come now, Stella. We are all old friends, are we not?”
“Very old indeed.”
A hum of tension built between them. The observers sensed it. Some disappeared with that now familiar whoosh of too-fast-for-the-eye movement, while others moved forward, crowding the wide doorway.
We were two good guys against ten naughty vampires. Was Stella powerful enough to handle this with only mostly-human me as back-up?
“And this.” She waved at the battered surroundings. “How do you justify such wanton destruction of yet another old friend’s property?”
“Yes, perhaps I was a bit overzealous.”
“Where is he?”
“Hm?” Dixon cocked his head to one side in mock innocence.
“Roland. Where is Roland?”
“He went out.”
“Out?” she prompted.
Dixon nodded. “For a swim.”
The audience snickered. Stella sauntered past Dixon with a seductive sway of her hips, trailing a finger across his chest. His hungry black eyes followed her. Clearly, Dixon had a thing for Stella.
My money said the feeling wasn’t even remotely mutual.
She faced me, expression unreadable. “So, old friend, I ask again. What are you playing at with this puny human?” She grabbed a handful of my hair, yanked and released it with feigned—or I hoped it was faked—disdain. I tried to act frightened of her, but frowned at the insult.
Dixon’s gaze shifted from Stella’s backside to me. “She belongs to The Warden. How could I resist?”
Silence, save my beating heart.
Stella glanced over her shoulder. “You should try harder next time. If there is one.”
A rush of wind blew past my cheek. Stella, wielding a long sword, sliced off the arm of the vampire holding me captive. He dropped, howling and writhing on the floor in an ever-expanding pool of his own blood. I swatted at his hand and forearm, still attached to my arm until they, too, hit the ground. Stella decapitated the noisy vamp in one blow.
“Treacherous bitch!” Dixon roared.
The restaurant erupted.
Stella’s two minions from the park appeared by the bar and attacked the vampires holding Alexander hostage. Their fight crashed them into the bar, breaking the wooden front of it like it was paper.
Roland appeared in the doorway, dripping wet and furious, eyes black, fangs bared. A quick flick of his thick wrists snapped the necks of the vampires on either side of him. He tossed their bodies aside. Others lunged at him driving him back onto the patio. The fog swallowed them all.
Beside me, Stella sliced up any vampire stupid enough to attack us. Dixon watched her defend me, his face a mask of rage and lust. Nasty vampire. He noticed me watching him and stalked toward us. I backed up, but Stella stopped me.
“Open up, foolish girl,” she snarled, flashing a neat set of fangs. “Let them in.”
Open? Oh, right. The barricade in my head. I closed my eyes, pictured the
door and wall I’d created and exploded them.
The shift was immediate.
A furious tornado named Thomas and Jonas roared into my body. My arms flew up at their bidding, alleluia-style, and power blasted Dixon off his feet. He crashed through the restaurant window. Three angry vampires nearby ran for cover to avoid the sudden hailstorm of falling glass. Stella, who still guarded my back with easy slice and dice swipes of her long sword, whipped me around and down to the floor behind an overturned table. The glass and assorted other flying carnage missed us.
A female vampire lunged at us while we crouched there. My arm swung in a good imitation of a tennis backhand and sent her flying into the wall.
I stood and stared at my arms, stunned. My body vibrated with Thomas and Jonas’s power. How long would my body survive this invasion? Where were they, anyway?
We’re coming, Jonas replied.
Almost there, Thomas added.
Stella handed me a short sword. I gave her a look. Did she really expect me to use it? Then Jonas yelled, Stop thinking. Fight! When a biker vampire appeared in front of me, I fought.
The disparity in strength and size didn’t matter with Thomas and Jonas inside me. I dodged the vampire’s attempts to nab me, landing a few good slices on his body. Enraged, he lunged, eyes black, fangs bared, blood pouring down his face from the cut I’d made on his forehead. I would’ve sidestepped him with ease yet again, but Thomas and Jonas arrived on the scene and withdrew their power.
The sudden internal vacuum knocked me off balance. My foot slipped in a pool of blood. I fell. Angry biker minion landed on top of me, his blood spattering my face. He crushed me to the floor with the full weight of his body, my hands pinned between us. Not such a bad thing. I held the short sword in his gut all the way to the hilt, put there by the weight of his own attack.
It wasn’t a killing blow for a vampire, but I enjoyed the shock, surprise, and pain on his face. For a second, anyway, right before he struck at my neck.
I braced for impact, but the vampire froze a mere breath away from my exposed flesh. Around us, the fighting ceased. The biker looked up at Thomas and Jonas. I tried to push him off, but he was too heavy and my boots kept slipping in the blood on the floor.
I was lying in a pool of blood. My stomach churned.
“Get off me,” I grunted.
The vampire obeyed. I had a death grip on the sword so it remained behind as he disappeared in hyper speed. I attempted to take in air, but my breathing was shallow and labored, my body chilled to the bone.
Stella knelt beside me. “Carina, it’s over.” She unwrapped my fingers from the sword’s hilt. I watched her without interest.
“Carina,” she repeated, tossing aside the weapon.
When I didn’t reply, she hauled me to my feet. I stared at myself, surprised to discover I had legs. I was unable to feel them, yet there they were.
The floor, too, was surprising, in that there was one under my feet. It was red, as if someone had spilled gallons of paint over it. It also moved, or maybe that was my head. I felt like I’d hopped off a merry-go-round.
I swayed. A giant vampire scooped me up. A blurry giant. My eyes wouldn’t focus.
“She’s cold. Her pulse is racing and her lips are blue,” the giant rumbled. It was Roland the Bartender. “Her eyes are all pupil, too.”
I blinked at him, a vague sense of déjà vu tickling my mind. “You’ve done this before.”
“Yes, Princess.”
Princess?
A cold hand pressed against my wrist and I jerked. Chilly fingers pulled up my eyelids. When had I closed my eyes?
“She’s exhibiting symptoms of shock.” The gravelly male voice was familiar. I’d heard it recently at Haven.
“Doctor Goth.” I remembered the tall, gaunt man, his funeral attire and black eyeliner eyes. And the huge hypodermic needle he’d stuck in Adrian’s arm. “No shot,” I muttered. My head flopped against Roland’s big chest. So tired.
“Shock? Impossible,” Stella objected.
“She’s human,” Doc Goth countered, as if that explained it.
“Mostly human,” Thomas corrected him.
“And marked,” added Jonas.
“What do you mean ‘mostly’?” I interjected. “Why do you keep saying that?” And marked?
“You two pushed tremendous power into her limited body,” the doctor continued as if I hadn’t interrupted. “This is the result.”
“Our possession was brief. She heals quickly,” Thomas insisted.
“Yet perhaps not quickly enough,” the doctor replied.
My body trembled.
“Princess.” Roland’s call created a painful echo in my head.
“Stay out of there. That hurts,” I grumbled.
My head fell back and stayed there. How odd. I tired of this weirdness, the disorientation. Tired, being the operative word. I wanted to sleep.
“We can speed up the process,” Thomas stated. “With Him.”
“Yes, take her to the Youngling,” Jonas agreed.
“I hate it when you guys call me that,” complained the most wonderful voice in the world.
A jolt of energy shocked my body. I snapped to attention in Roland’s arms. My eyes focused and I spotted Dixon on his knees between two of Thomas’s enormous vampire goons. Thomas and Jonas stood nearby. I swiveled my head, trying to locate Alexander, but my energy waned. I slumped against Roland’s muscle-bound chest.
“Interesting,” Thomas observed.
“I’m not your science project,” I complained.
He chuckled.
“Princess.” Roland’s call was gentle this time, his voice covering me like a warm blanket.
A memory surfaced, of a much younger me falling out of a tree. I landed on the cold, hard ground, shaking and crying. Roland scooped me up and carried me to the house. “Sei a posto, principessa, vedrai che starai bene, principessa,” he assured me. “It’s okay Princess, you’ll be okay, Princess.” I believed him.
He said those words to me now.
“You were my nanny,” I murmured, sleepy.
“I prefer the term bodyguard, if it pleases you, Princess.”
“Okay,” I replied and passed out.
~ * ~
An argument interrupted my oblivion.
“Do it,” Thomas commanded.
“No,” Alexander replied.
“Why must you fight us at every turn, Youngling?”
“Well, let’s start with the Youngling crap, Gramps.”
“It is a fact,” Jonas stated.
“It’s annoying as hell.”
“Fine, perhaps we will work on it,” Thomas conceded. “And do not ever call me Gramps. Now do it.”
“No.”
“She will recover more quickly if you do,” Thomas insisted.
“You don’t know that.”
“True,” Thomas admitted. “But do not deny your connection. Already she heals somewhat from your touch, imagine what your blood—”
“No.”
“Resist us at your own peril, Youngling. Not hers,” Jonas growled.
“Not without her permission.” Alexander’s firm tone impressed me.
“Stubborn fool. We could force you.” Jonas’s anger bit my skin.
I groaned in protest and burrowed into Alexander’s chest. We’d only embraced one other time yet my brain said, this is home.
“Jonas,” Thomas warned.
Jonas’s power backed off. I rubbed my cheek against Alexander’s chest like a contented cat.
“He is right, you know, Alex,” Thomas said. “You cannot fight what is already written.”
“Nothing is written in stone. Free will, remember? We have choice. She has a choice.”
“That’s enough.” I opened my eyes and sat up in the circle of Alexander’s arms, every body part complaining as I moved. “You guys are making my head hurt worse than it already does. So cool it with the mystic babble. Unless you want to say something tha
t makes sense. Then, please, do enlighten me.”
Thomas and Jonas exchanged a look.
“What?” I scowled at them for exchanging said look.
“How do you feel?” Thomas’s face formed a neutral mask.
Dressed in a custom-fit Italian black suit and a green silk shirt matching his eyes, the perfection of his outfit made me all the more aware of the blood-soaked clothes sticking to me like a wet, second skin. Jonas, too, appeared spotless and elegantly gloomy in black slacks, dress shoes, and a cashmere sweater, his long dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail fastened at his neck. His ever-present gold ankh necklace added sparkle to his otherwise somber ensemble. I was far from sparkly.
“What, you don’t know how I feel?” I ached in places I didn’t even know could ache.
Both vampires waited, expressions unreadable.
“Fine, I guess. All things considered.” I stood with Alexander’s assistance and caught my first glimpse of him. His fancy jacket was gone, his shirt shredded. Angry red lines decorated his chest, his face and neck battered and bloody.
“You look terrible.”
“Not for long.” He gave my hand a squeeze and pulled it to his lips.
Lust lit a fire in my belly. Alexander’s lips curled in a sexy smile and I leaned in for a kiss, forgetting we stood in the middle of death and destruction.
“My, my, Warden, I thought you kept a tighter leash on your personal pets,” Dixon mocked. Thomas’s giant enforcers held him by his arms, his feet dangling above the floor.
“You bastard.” I strode up to the nasty vampire, intent on doing some damage. Then I remembered why I was so angry. My friends are hurt.
“Where are they? What have you done with them?”
Throat tight, I searched for Mark and Ren.
Several men and women in black coveralls, surgical gloves and baseball caps moved among the wreckage, stuffing debris into black garbage bags. A few glanced my way as I spoke, but most ignored me.
“Calmati, Carina. They’re alive,” Thomas soothed. “At the clinic.”
My heart raced and a painful lump formed in my chest. I couldn’t lose Mark and Ren. “Take me there now.”
Thomas and Jonas shook their heads.
Haven Page 12
