Haven never sent a single team in to do their dirty work just in case something like this happened. They had to clear this crime scene fast, he and this mortal, before more goons finished what the first started. “I need your help,” he said, slowly and clearly. From a lion’s vocal cords, his voice was strangled and dry. He’d forgone every bit of his charm.
“You—you’re talking,” she stammered.
“I’m not really a lion,” he said, taking a step toward her, which she measured in a backward scoot.
“This is impossible. Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?” The scent of fear drifted from her. He imagined there was no way she could possibly process what was happening, but he needed her to try.
“This isn’t a dream, unfortunately. If only we both could wake from it.” He lifted a paw in his best approximation of a shrug.
She stood shakily. Progress, he thought, backing up so he stood at the stairwell. He meant to block her from trying to run away, but this also opened a path for her to see what’d happened in that small enclosure that reeked heavily of shed blood. It did little good for her panic, but he let her see exactly what was there. “Are they all dead?” she asked, sounding like she spoke from numb lips.
“As dead as we’ll be if you don’t help me,” he replied. She turned toward him, her face pale but fists balled at her side. Shock was setting in.
He had three options. He could leave her here to call the mortal authorities and try slipping away on his own, but he was a lion trying to outrun the preternatural senses of vampires in full control of their faculties. Or he could continue trying to convince her to move instead of lingering at this murder scene. By her expression of glassy shock, he figured he would have more luck trying to drive her car by himself.
So that left the third option, a risky one when he was shapeshifted. It was his only real choice to look her in the eye and compel her just as the two Haven goons had. He felt a headache bloom in the back of his head as he met her gaze and expressed a mental command for her to be calm.
Her muscles relaxed, her expression going neutral as she waited for her next command. Compelling mortals was easy work, something even a newly turned vampire could accomplish with ease. It helped them take the blood they needed to survive and erase the memory, thus keeping their race a shadowy secret.
But the effort to keep this woman from panicking was taxing. His lion shapeshift didn’t have the same raw influence as he would as a man, so he needed to make this quick and get them both on the right track. “Take me to your car,” he ordered.
She moved forward with the intentionality of a robot, marching out of the blood-soaked room and into the night, where a myriad of animals had resumed calling and crying to one another. Alex would have ordered her to move faster, but his limping prevented them from making haste. It would have to do.
Every moment that passed was a chance for Haven to tighten the net around them. He imagined the two goons would soon fail to check in, signaling to the other crews that something had gone wrong. By the time they arrived at the zoo to finish the deed, he and this woman needed to be long gone.
Unfortunately, no matter what they did, every scrap of evidence would be altered and bent by Haven Entertainment, a media giant the Haveners took their namesake from. The supernaturals would leave, and the murders would need someone to blame. As the only mortal survivor, the blonde woman leading him to the staff parking lot would be the perfect victim.
She unlocked the doors to a white sedan, opening the back for him to squeeze into. Pain blurred his vision as he pulled himself into the small space, tense muscles spasming. Escape? his inner beast whined, not so sure of its impending panic when Alex knew that danger was on the outside of this car.
“Drive east. Get us as close to New York as you can,” he ordered. As the car jostled over speed bumps, he laid his head down, uttering a groan as his passive control of her turned from a strand of awareness to hot knives in his skull.
“What’s in New York?” she asked, her voice uttering as a hazy murmur. Without him compelling her to speak, she shouldn’t have asked or thought to wonder. He knew his control over her was slipping, but as long as she wasn’t panicking, he wouldn’t try to force her back under his complete thrall.
“Safety,” he said.
“Safety,” she repeated, smiling in the rear-view mirror.
Snarling, his inner beast sank its claws in his already painful headache. The animal was attempting to gain control, something he was weak to without being able to change forms.
It was said that to remain too long in a shapeshifted form would be to doom yourself to become that animal. As Alex fought off the press of animal instincts and emotions, he wondered how long he truly had before he would succumb to being a simple lion.
It would be a slow, excruciating death to be the little voice of reason stuck in the head of an animal. Something told him his longtime enemy had intended for this, too, even seeing it as the true plan, with the zoo being the easy way out by euthanasia.
Alex cleared his throat, fighting off panic to speak to the mortal once more. “Do you have a phone? There’s a number I need you to call.”
Chapter 4
Violet
VIOLET RETURNED TO coherent thought slowly, like waking from a dream. It gave her the chance to really think about what had happened without the lens of panic, which she would surely return to if she could.
The lion had done something to her, hijacking her body to make it robotically answer to his whims. Thus, they fled the scene of the crime in her old car while he stained her backseat with his gruesomely hurt self. Something was very, very wrong here. How was a lion able to talk? And why had those two men taken him to her zoo just to kill innocent people?
She’d had such a close shave with death, or worse, that she could still feel its cold, clammy hand upon her neck. And something told her they weren’t done outrunning danger, not with the urgency he’d somehow instilled in her body. At this time of night, the interstate was nearly deserted. She zoomed past any stray cars, hoping to be caught by a policeman so she could communicate her distress…somehow. If anyone would believe she was only doing this because a lion had told her so.
Stealing a glance into the backseat, she saw he had his head down and covered with a massive paw. It was a clear sign of pain, though the worst of his injuries were the cuts lacerating his flank. His fur was matted, covering signs of any open wounds.
“Do you have a phone?” She jumped and used that motion to snap her gaze forward, as if she hadn’t stolen a peek at him. “There’s a number I need you to call.”
“I have a phone,” she said. Whatever he’d done to her made her measure out her words without inflection.
He ordered her to slow down and call a specific number, which she did, dialing an unfamiliar area code. “Is this safe?” she asked.
He seemed to ignore the question. “Put it on speakerphone.”
Her thoughts came closer to the surface. A groan came from the lion, sounding pained. “Are we…are we safe?” Because this didn’t feel safe. Hurtling down the interstate with a wild animal she’d stolen from the zoo was the opposite of safe already. But she’d gotten the impression that they weren’t done with the men who’d seemingly arranged a hit on this talking lion.
The phone rang. One ring, two…
And the lion breathed a sigh of relief as someone picked up the line. “Hello?” a curt, male voice rang over the speaker.
“Sam, good to hear your voice again,” he said, relaxing in his seat.
“You’re alive!” Sam exclaimed. “Julian said you’re far from home.”
He nodded. “Ohio. Bit of a situation here.”
“When is it ever not?” Sam sighed. “Especially if you’re involved.”
“That’s a man that knows me well.” It seemed like the lion was directing this at her. She managed a faint grimace of a smile. “We’re travelling your way; I believe this is I-71 East. I need a status report.”
“I have a mor… a civilian with me.”
“Bloody hell.” Sam sounded distinctly British to her at that point. “You know—”
“I know. Status,” he demanded, cutting him off before he could say much more.
“Right. Julian is still chasing Cox. He’s got a tag on her now, good old Bloodhound he is,” he said. “Nicholas is holding the…” he hesitated. “Is your friend listening?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
“Hello there,” Sam said briskly. “Nicholas is in charge,” he added. “I have a team monitoring the news and internet for damage control. Melanie and I are prepping to go on I-71 West now, so we should meet up somewhere in the middle. We’ll bring as many enforcers as we can spare right now. Do you have a mile marker or a landmark so we know where you are?”
The lion yawned, seeming to grow disinterested. He circled in the backseat, resting his head on his flank. “Alex? Alex, you with me?” Sam asked after a pause.
Between one blink and the next, Violet shook off the last cobwebs of his control. “He’s not,” she said, taking a sharp breath as her heart sped to a staccato drumbeat.
“What do you mean, love?” he asked.
“He’s… taking a nap,” she said, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel. They were ten miles and counting away from the zoo by the mile markers. It wasn’t too late for her to turn around, call the authorities, and try to explain what’d happened.
She heard murmuring on the other end of the line as she debated her decision. “It’s what we were afraid of,” Sam sighed, his tone gentling. “Maybe you can answer a few questions for me. First, what’s your name?”
“Violet.”
“Violet, hello, I’m Samuel Rainey. I know Alex is not a forthcoming gentleman on the best of days, so you must be very confused. Help me, and I’ll try to clear some things up, okay?”
“Okay.” It was difficult to force words from her throat, her hands trembling on the wheel. The offer of understanding was too good to resist, though.
“Can you tell me where you are?”
She read a passing mile marker to him. He repeated it to someone else, a feminine murmur in the background.
“Great, thank you. You must be driving.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know if Alex used anything that seems like magic to you recently?”
“Yes… he did something to me,” she admitted.
“And you’re all right?” he asked. The concern in his voice had her throat tightening up.
“Y-yes, I’m fine.”
“You sound about as fine as I’d expect,” he said, a touch of dry humor there. “Let me tell you what I know. Alex there is a high-priority target for people who hunt…people like him and me.”
“What kind of people are you?” she interrupted.
She waited several beats for him to reply. “We’re vampires, love.”
And that was when she heard an engine revving behind them.
Chapter 5
Alex
ALEX STRUGGLED WITH himself, a war waging silently in his head. Fatigue dragged at his frame. The animal in him wanted to rest, and rest it did, wrestling away control of his body.
He still heard Violet and Samuel talking. His deputy and best friend started soothing her in the way only Samuel Rainey could do. As years passed, he remained kind when most of their ilk quickly lost that human edge amongst their feelings of superiority.
Alex did not feel superior right now. In fact, a level of shame passed over him as he pulled himself together just in time to see Violet’s look of horror as Sam revealed their biggest secret. The woman was a shade of shocked white that hadn’t relented since they’d left the zoo. While he worried for her health, he worried more for their lives.
His ears turned backward, picking up the sound of an engine revving. They’d been found, he thought. “Get down!” he roared. Violet ducked a split second before glass shattered behind them.
Sam cursed over the phone as Violet peeked into the rear-view mirror, swerving their car out of the way of their pursuer. An errant bullet struck the center of the windshield, sending up a shockwave of cracks. “I can’t see!”
“Stop the car!” Alex yelled. It had been a foolish hope to think she could outrun the military-grade vehicle on their tail in the regular car she drove. But Alex had hoped it anyway since he was not fighting fit. It felt like his body had been through a grinder and back again. But if either of them was to survive this, he would be the beast at bay. He would turn on their pursuers and secure safety for both of them.
The car was rammed sideways, veering toward a guard rail. “Samuel, you will have to find us,” he said in a rush.
“Roger,” he replied gravely. “Good luck.” The line went dead as Violet screamed. A second ram sent them off the road. The wheels struggled for purchase against damp clumps of grass and weeds, the car heading downhill at a poor angle. He sank his claws into the upholstery as they rolled. Once. Airbags pummeled his aching body. Twice. Three times. They came to a stop with a groan of protesting metal splashing into water.
He punctured the airbags around him with sharp claws as he felt water rushing over his fur. They were sinking. “Violet?” he called, pushing his paws into the bags surrounding her slight form. No response. He smelled blood, sweet and rich. No, no, she couldn’t die now. He pushed harder, fighting the limp fabric as it became wet. Violet’s head rested back against the seat, her eyes closed. A trickle of blood leaked from her nose, the only hint of the trauma she must’ve sustained. But he didn’t smell death upon her, so he knew there was a chance. His paws fumbled with the seatbelt, releasing and snapping it away from her body. Shards of glass rained upon them as the car went nose-down in the water.
Alex grasped the back of her shirt in his jaws and tugged, using the seat for purchase as he dragged her and tried to keep her head above the water line. She lolled to the side like a limp doll. He waited for the river to pull them further downstream, praying to anyone who was listening that they be washed out of range of the firepower their pursuers were packing. The water level rose steadily until he was barely treading against the current. Violet splashed along under his paddling paws, completely dead weight. They passed through the shot-out back panel, glass shards raking her clothes and his fur. Ruby ribbons trailed from them both, eaten up by the greedy water.
He struck out for the opposite shore, muscles burning in protest. Dark, polluted river water choked his senses as he struggled. He wasn’t sure if he had the strength to make it.
It took all of his effort to pull them both to safety. The shallows suckled with thick mud as he dragged Violet through it, laying her on the shore. Filthy, but alive. He wanted to lay down, too, but turned to regard the pair of men on the far bank of the river several yards away. They were heading back to their car. Alex cursed to himself, knowing they’d soon be close enough to finish him and Violet off. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to her unconscious form, pushing her shirt up until he exposed a deep cut from an embedded shard of glass. He worked it free with his mouth and lapped up the blood that pooled in the wound, gagging as it mixed with river water. Warmth and power surged through his body. It was electric and heady, a temporary high that hit him hard, brought low as he was.
He bounded into action, crossing the shore up a grassy hill sloping toward the interstate. The Haveners’ SUV came to a stop as he took a running leap, catching the first vampire’s neck in his mouth before he could blink and crushing his windpipe with a brutal twist. Fire lashed his side as the other man shot him. The bullet left a stinging trail down to where it tore through his thigh. Alex stumbled, ducking behind the bulk of a tire as his body leaked some of the precious blood he’d just acquired. He had to finish this fast, before he was shot again. His ears perked, listening to the footsteps starting to circle the vehicle.
Flattening himself down, he waited. Gravel crunched underfoot as he saw the muzzle of the gun precedin
g the man himself. Alex shot up, crunching the hand attached to that gun at the wrist. It clattered to the ground. He whipped his head around with enough force to slam the man into the nose of the vehicle. This second assailant crumbled, hitting the ground unconscious. Alex finished the job by slashing the man’s jugular with a swipe of his claws.
He cursed the Havener hard as he dragged himself back to Violet, safe only for the moment. Human law enforcement and emergency services would be following them, alerted when the second team failed to check in. And looking down at Violet, he wondered if he should let them take her too.
She lay sprawled where he left her, clothes and face muddy. He’d seen enough injuries to guess what was happening in her body. A concussion, swelling of the brain, and then infection setting in her mud-smeared cuts. He shifted on his paws, distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of parting with her. Now that they’d foiled the Havener attack on their tail, he knew his longtime enemy would be releasing damning “evidence” of Violet committing several crimes they themselves had done at the zoo. To let humans take her away would be to condemn her to life in prison if not death from a Havener for helping him so far.
No, he had another option, though it had its consequences. He speared one of his pads with a claw and opened her mouth. Concentrated vampire blood welled before spilling onto her tongue.
He gave her exactly three drops before pulling back and waiting. A shudder worked its way through her body. Vampires were rare, and the mortals who knew of them were even rarer. Exposure to a small amount of his blood would lend preternaturally fast healing, but there was a small chance she would begin to turn. Either way, she would live.
Darkness stole at the sides of his vision. He’d overexerted himself again. But he told himself it was worth it as Violet stirred and opened her eyes. The blue in them was shadowed by pain and confusion. He sighed quietly in relief, nudging her onto her feet. “What happened?” Her slurred voice sounded far away, words distorting to something his inner beast didn’t recognize.
Dream Walker: Blood Legacy Series Book 1 Page 2
