by Seth Eden
And then he ran for the part of the building she must have broadcast from. Wherever they'd put her, that's where he'd start. Where he'd find her scent and follow her trail.
Behind him, he heard the Vampyren engage with the Lucian.
Inside it was cold and sterile. Alek ran soundlessly over marble floors but cameras tracked him.
They were waiting for him at the entrance to what had been holding cells for a substation of Las Vegas police.
He didn't slow. He slammed into the men who stood there and drew his guns even as he as falling to one side, aimed and fired and caught one of the Lucian in the arm, the blast spinning him around but not dropping him.
He scrambled to his feet and ran. Outside there was gunfire and voices, more than he'd thought would be there but his men were holding their own. He could hear their voices.
He ran at the holding cells. In the farthest, he could see Mindy, crumpled to the floor. She stood when she heard him shout, stood and backed away from the door as he ordered and he fired, breaking the lock on the third shot, then ducked and slid under the outstretched weapons of a Lucian female who appeared from somewhere down the corridor lined with cells.
She went down to his guns, wielded as clubs.
Mindy came out of the cage, already running. He thought she'd run to him, like other human females rescued from anything, but instead she ran back the way he'd come.
Over her shoulder, she shouted, "It's a trap! They knew what I was! They have a bomb rigged to blow! That's why I was able to send info!"
She was crying, running for what she thought was the closest exit.
He knew it wasn't. He'd come that way. She was going the wrong way, following signs from the human's time, not from what the Lucian had done to the place.
He caught her easily, moving faster than she could ever dream to, spun her and grabbed her waist and sprinted in the correct direction.
A muffled rumble and thud of a bomb exploding outside the city hall brought Lucian running at them, one of them coming straight at Alex with guns drawn and a look of murderous anticipation. He was never meant to have reached this far inside but now he was here, they'd enjoy it.
He was going too fast on the slick floor to stop, barreling toward the armed man, running a zigzag that was out of control between desks in some municipal office.
It was Mindy who slid, letting momentum take her under his arm and out the other side. She only stopped when she collided with the wall there and the Lucian she'd passed started to look back at her, mocking, perhaps.
They never found out.
Because she picked up a reading light from someone's desk and brought it down hard on the Lucian coming at them.
Unlike Alek, this time Mindy's target went down.
He'd dropped the spear some time back. Its purpose had been to lead the men. It wasn't effective as a weapon on this planet.
Outside the units were fighting. The trap had been sprung but the Lucian were taken by surprise as well – the Vampyren knew what to expect.
She didn't run into his arms then, either. She dropped her weapon instead, looked at him over the fallen, bloodied Lucian, and said, "Took you long enough."
Alek felt his mouth curl in an unfamiliar smile. "Your directions were unclear."
Offended, she said, "I gave you everything but the address! Here, tie him up or something. He's going to wake up."
He moved fast to the Lucian, binding his arms behind him and his ankles to his wrists, then gagging them.
"They sent you here because of me." It wasn't apology but acknowledgement.
She took it that way. "I know. Can we go?"
He spun on his boot, starting back the way he'd come. "There is a fight. I cannot leave it."
He heard her fall in behind him. She wasn't a Vampyren female. He had no right to tell her to stay behind.
And probably no need.
Outside both units were locked in combat. Lucian sprang from any perch they could climb, all teeth and claws and pelts gleaming in the lights of the city at night. The Vampyren were battle mad, their eyes glowing red as they tore through the enemy. Night on Earth made them killing machines.
He felt the tug of it, the need to sink his fangs into the girl at his side, and forced the need down. She would never be safe with him. Not on Earth where he nightly turned savage, and never on his own planet where his people would tear her limb from limb simply for being human.
He looked back at her where she stood on the steps of the building, eyes wide, watching. She was cautious but not afraid.
That made her stupid. Nothing more, he told himself.
"Go!" His voice was hard and hoarse.
Her head swiveled fast. She stared at him.
"Go! You need to run. You need to get free. You can be out of the city before morning. Your friend is still in the harem. If you must go back for her, go through – "
He didn't get any farther. She leaned toward him, shouting. "I came here because of you! I sent messages back because of you! You shouldn't have any affect on my life and you do, so if you think I'm going to run – "
He was shouting before she finished, leaning up toward her where she stood on the stairs. He heard himself shouting at her not to be stupid, to run while she had the chance, to take what he was offering, she and Candy could join the other humans in the rural areas, live safely, just not the resistance, if she could –
"Behind you!" she shouted and he ducked, already spinning around, heard the weapon discharge directly over his head and instantly feared the worse. That she would be gone.
That she would be dead.
He slid, feet first, into the Lucian who had come up behind him with the gun, knocking him to all fours and then dragging him down to the ground where he sank his teeth into the man's throat and ripped.
Lucian blood was hot and dirty and foul. He drank anyway. He'd need the energy for the fight.
When he turned back she was still there, dragging up a weapon from a fallen Lucian, running toward where the noise was coming from. Alek swore and chased her. If she kept to the stairs above the street, if she fired down and didn't engage hand to hand, she'd have the same strength as the Lucian.
If she didn't –
He wasn't going to lose her again.
The fight turned slowly. There were more Lucian than vampires and it was their held buildings, but the Vampyren were night mad, savage and battle crazed and they tore through their attackers, until the attack turned to a route and the full moon set over the city and the streets rang with quiet.
In the early dawn, the city of two million could have been deserted. Around the City Hall there weren't even television news crews, just one lone helicopter flying overhead, dipping down close enough for photographs and video but nowhere near close enough to be touched.
Clean up was long and slow. Loading the prisoners. Killing those that resisted, which was the majority. Closing up the building.
At last as the sun rose and his savagery ebbed, Alek turned to Mindy. "Take one of the vehicles. You could get a long way before evening. There's not going to be much going on except talk of this for the day. You can get somewhere safe." He held out keys to a Humvee.
She looked at him, furious and hurt, took the keys but didn't walk toward the vehicle. "I'm going back to the harem." Her eyes met his. "Or were you lying about Candy?"
He heard the fear under the anger in her voice. "No. Not lying. She's there."
"How long have you known?" She was holding brittle anger up in front of hurt.
"Hours. I saw her before I left the hotel."
She nodded slowly. "I'm going back there."
"They won't let you leave again."
She made an impatient sound. "Candy's there. I can't leave without her. How will they even know I'm back?"
It was his turn to laugh. "For one thing – " Before she could move, he grabbed the mike and pulled it from her arm.
She screamed, clapped her hand over the blood, then visib
ly paled as he took her arm and held it up to his mouth, looked over it to gauge not her permission but her reaction, then put his mouth to the wound and drank.
It sealed up again in thirty seconds and he slowed his feeding and let her go.
"They'll know I'm coming." Her voice sounded defiant but small.
"I'll get you in. And I'll get you back out."
She nodded doubtfully. "Why?"
"Because you'll do it anyway and you'll get hurt without me. Because you need my help. Because I want to."
17
Every reason except I love you.
She hadn't expected anything else.
What she didn't expect was for him to draw her to him and bite deep into her lower lip. The pain seared, agony at first, and she almost tried to beat him away from her except the pain was ebbing, running out fast, and pleasure taking its place.
When the orgasm hit from the bite alone, it almost dropped her off her feet. She clung to his neck, sucking, kissing, licking his salt-slick skin. "No fair. Using pheromones."
"I'm not."
She pulled back to look up at him but he wasn't smiling. He was serious, watching her, and when she looked up, he kissed her, his mouth awkward. Biting had to be more common.
"Do it again," she said, and when he did, she came again, seeing stars. This time she dropped to her knees, clawing at the armor that covered him. He reached behind him and undid the buckles and the body armor slid from him. His shirt followed, his pants, and she thought that they were in city offices where there might be functioning cameras and there might be functioning Lucian and she couldn't bring himself to care.
When she licked at him, his huge length, his thickness, he pulled her to her feet. "Not this time."
He led her to one of the desks in the outer offices. Somewhere in her mind she understood anyone could walk in at any time and she didn't care.
She cared that he undressed her, shredding her clothes and she'd have to have something else to leave in or the other troops would be all over her.
She understood when he scratched her shoulder deep enough draw blood, then bent his head to it and sucked the blood down, sighing in delight. The sensation was strange. It felt as if she became more clear at every moment but didn't care what was happening around her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, scissored them behind his back, and tried to drag him down.
He laughed and easily lifted her in his arms, one hand going under her ass, the other exploring her mouth, her breasts, her cunt, pressing her clit and circling it, covering it with her own wet want, then sliding the finger deep inside her.
"Let me watch you," he said.
All she could think was, You already have, the bite, my lip – oh god! But she could feel her body tightening already, waves of pleasure coming harder and centralizing, then radiating out from where his finger moved inside her, touching her slick, tight places, urging her higher and higher until she was panting and moaning, writhing in his arms and that's when he added a secondlong finger into the mix.
Mindy cried out and came and at that moment he repositioned her and thrust inside her, riding her hard and fast as Mindy's orgasm broke over her in waves.
When he came, she thought that was the sound she heard.
And then she realized a bomb had gone off.
It wasn't as huge as she'd thought. City Hall didn't come down. The men outside were out of range when it blew; that had been intentional.
By the time they got outside the Lucian were in control, being transported inside the building where they'd be held. Details of men were either escorting the Lucian or going out onto patrol or securing the newly taken building.
She wore someone's abandoned sweater and a pair of very old and paint stained sweat pants that had been used as a rag.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except Alek there with her.
18
There was nothing simple about wrap up.
There were Lucian everywhere that needed to be corralled and most of them weren't. they were in Las Vegas, not only in the stolen City Hall, and they'd be spread throughout the world, just like the Vampyren.
They were harder to spot. Tall, pale, deceptively strong, they didn't give off the same vibe as a seven or eight-foot-tall warrior with waist-length black hair.
The world needed the very people the Vampyren had trained. Mindy knew how to fight now. She wasn't as strong and she wasn't as big as the first wave of invaders, but she could teach. After three months protected by drunk businessmen, trading the occasional grope for the questionable safety of the condo party, she'd found herself at risk of the Vampyren while stuck directly in their lair.
She'd survived.
It was time to go. Past time. She'd been feeling the drumming restlessness back at the condo party, though anyone would, if stuck with businessmen for three months of drinking.
Now there was more at stake, with more aliens on Earth and those harder for most people to identify. She needed to leave the city and head into the rural parts of the state where grassroots resistance cells were growing up.
It was criminally stupid to go back to Caesars with Alek, because he was one of her captors. Because she needed to leave before anyone could stop her.
But she had the keys and she had the freedom.
She also had the information of where to find Candy. Mindy's best friend wouldn't leave her there and Mindy wouldn't either.
They separated inside the hotel.
"Take these."
"I can't – "
"Don't be stupid." The Vampyren weren't concerned with being polite. Alek pressed the keys to the Humvee in her hand, then a second set, and then, "I'll find you in the desert."
"Wait!" She spun, half following him where he was already running, toward his unit, which moved in solid strength toward the rooms where probably the older Vampyren still gathered, hatching their plots and insuring their hold on the pointless kingdom they'd overthrown.
Thinking they'd sent away the younger males that might challenge their rule of this kingdom.
She wondered if they had closed circuit cameras on. She wondered if any of them were watching them and if they saw Alek and his men coming for them.
He turned back when she called. "How?" she asked, her arms out, meaning How will you find me? Thinking, Am I so stupid when I've been given the chance to run?
Not stupid. And not pheromones.
Though maybe it was that. A little. From her to him. Because he answered her by licking his lips long and slow, looking at her with hooded eyes, then opening his mouth just far enough to show her his fangs.
"I've tasted you."
She found herself flushing, one hand halfway to her mouth, as if she wanted to hide. Or not. Maybe instead she wanted to lick and suck and taste.
"I'll find you."
He spun away then and was gone, running through the hotel toward the rooms where the older Vampyren thought they were safe as some new invisible girl served them coffee.
She turned to go find her friend.
The hotel was largely deserted, or maybe it just seemed that way because usually Mindy was on the harem floors where there were girls and music and movies playing to fill the air and the sound of voices talking. To give them credit, some of them were plotting and planning and others were – just talking.
Take them all.
That was a stupid idea.
But she started to run when she got to the first of the harem floors. The second set of keys Alek had handed her opened the elevators and stairwell doors for her. All the training meant she ran the flights of stairs up to the floor where the harem sheltered.
Keys in hand, gripped like a weapon, she made her way down hallways toward the breeding chambers where Candy was being held.
Halfway there she rounded a hallway and came face to face with Cindie Gee. Mindy pulled up short and avoided the girl, jogging to one side, starting past her.
Cindie didn't move, just said over her shoulder,
"I know what you're doing."
Ice ran through Mindy's veins and she heard Shauna in memory telling her not to trust that one, she was on her own team and no one else's.
She turned back unwillingly. So close. There was still the finding of Candy and then the convincing of everyone it seemed safe to approach but it felt close. The keys in her hand felt like freedom.
"What am I doing?" she asked.
Cindie's eyes half lidded. She looked pleased. "You're going to run. You're looking for that stupid girl you call a friend. You were out of the hotel. How stupid are you?"
Mindy said, "I haven't been caught yet." And then, the thing she most didn't want to say, "Come with us."
She'd meant to leave without Cindie. Without a handful of girls who'd be at no more risk than they had been, but who weren't completely on the side of – humans? Or maybe just not enough on the side of anyone but themselves.
Cindie cocked one anorexic hip. "Oh, I don't think so. Look at everything we have here and you're going to risk it." She pointed around them.
It was a prison. It was beautiful, sumptuously appointed, full of amenities, and never in her life had Mindy expected to get tired of being pampered or the flip side, be in such stellar physical condition.
But it was a prison nonetheless.
And Alek waited beyond it.
"It's a trap. It's a prison. And the Vampyren are not your friends."
That just made Cindie smile harder, her chestnut hair gleaming in the hallway lights. "They will be," she said. "When I bring them the prize of the human girl who fucked up their plans for today."
"Cindie, please."
That just got a smile as Cindie started to turn away. But there was movement from one of the rooms, someone coming up quick behind Cindie before she could turn. Before she could react.
It wasn't a lamp, whatever it was, but it was something hard that didn't break when Candy brought it down on Cindie's head.
Mindy, inappropriately, and badly timed, began to giggle.
"Where the hell have you been?" Candy asked. "I thought you'd never get here."
