Present Tense: Pleasure Times Four (Out of the Fire Book 3)

by Candace Blevins

  Aaron was offering her a huge bonus — nearly three months of her salary — if she could bring the data from the offline computer out, but that wasn’t why she was doing it. The crazy vampire was doing it because she’s a good person and she didn’t want Chance to have to do it.

  They’d made Kelsey practice with the gear on. A vest to keep bullets out of her heart, a gun on her hip, and extra magazines for the gun. Also, a knife on her belt, though she had no idea what she might need it for. And to top it off, what had to be the most ridiculous looking helmet ever.

  The boots weren’t awful, and the pants were actually comfortable. So at least there was that. They wouldn’t let her wear her own clothes because she had to wear something fireproof. Also, it was apparently important they all be dressed the same.

  And as Mira had pointed out, this wasn’t about looking good. It was about staying alive.

  Kelsey hadn’t known there were silent helicopters, but the one they were in didn’t make more sound than a breeze made in the muggy heat of summer.

  But it wasn’t the dead of summer. Winter’s cold curled around even the shapeshifters like an icy claw — but it didn’t seem to faze the dragon shifter. He was raw heat as she sat in his lap, attached to him in some kind of demented double-harness. They’d be parachuting in, and he’d insisted she’d be safest with him. Her men hadn’t argued, but she’d much rather be in any of their laps.

  She heard go-go-go-go-GO in her headset, and she saw Panda, Mira, and Jones jump one after another. She and Aaron were next, and she knew her men were just behind them. They had nine people in all, and were planning to take over a facility ran by more than thirty people.

  She jammed the roof cameras and sensors as soon as she was close enough to do so, using equipment strapped to her left forearm. Fifteens seconds later, they landed on the roof, folded and rolled the parachutes in mere seconds, and stuck them in a bag. Aaron hooked the harness that still held Kelsey to his chest to a rope with a hook Mira handed them. Kelsey used her vampire claws to cut a hole in a glass panel over the indoor sunroom and garden while Panda set the rope into a piling around some rooftop mechanical equipment. Her stomach seemed to stay on the roof when Aaron jumped and levitated them down, pretending to use the rope though he was barely putting weight on it. She assumed he didn’t want people to know he could fly in this form.

  As soon as she and Aaron’s feet touched the floor, he disconnected the harness and she stepped away from him. Panda and Mira joined them, and they headed for the shielded room on this level. Most of the computer equipment was in the basement, but this computer was on the highest floor, in a secret room off the facility director’s personal suite.

  The other five were going in through the garage. They’d raise the alarm down there and would be fighting for their lives while she did what she could do with this fucking offline computer.

  It was two in the morning here, and the director was in his bed, exactly where he was supposed to be. Mira was in the room and on top of him less than a second after Kelsey used the retinal scanner — she’d hacked in and put her eye into the database before they’d left American soil, and had re-targeted all alerts about new registrations to come to her, rather than the director and his top people.

  She heard the director’s heart speed up. Panic and terror filled the room, and then the scent of urine and shit. And then the director’s heart stopped. Mira had killed him. Kelsey had known the plan was to disable or kill, but witnessing it was a completely different matter.

  But she had a job to do. She stopped breathing because the room stank of death and terror and it was too much for her to deal with. Instead, she focused on what came next — getting past the wall and into the hidden room.

  She walked to the wall and felt around, trying to figure out how to access the room. It took three precious minutes to find and expose the console, which then required both retina and palm access. Her information was in the database with the correct access permissions, so getting in wasn’t a problem.

  And then she was sitting in front of the computer, and the easy stuff was behind her. This wasn’t going to be a piece of cake.

  The three people with her turned their back to her, as she’d requested. She couldn’t work with people staring at her. She plugged her smartphone into the single USB port and went to work.

  Fabio went low, Collosa went high, and Eunice stood at his normal height. It was how they always entered a room when people inside might want to shoot them. Or worse.

  Thanks to Kelsey, Fabio’s palm had opened the door to get them into the garage, which was filled with primarily snowmobiles and tank-type vehicles. One sensor was purposefully left alive in this room, and they all avoided it until everyone was in place. When they were, Collosa stood tall and waved his arm into it.

  And then all hell broke loose.

  The idea was to bring everyone in the building to them, to keep them away from Kelsey on the third floor. This room took up a third of the basement level, which was only partially underground. There was a subbasement, mostly storage and mechanicals, but no one would be on that level at this hour.

  Best they could tell, four men would be awake and on patrol. No one outside, because the fuckers depended on the fact it was impossible to get here without their sensors picking someone up. Idiots were relying too much on technology, but that only helped the Drake team get in, so it was all good.

  The four who were on guard duty came in first, and the Drake people made quick work of them. Another seven came in together, though through different doors, and the firefight lasted nearly twenty seconds before everyone’s target was down.

  There should be another eighteen people alive, but some of those people were scientists and geeks — not warriors.

  They’d known security personnel would be sent to the director’s room, to keep him safe and to protect the equipment in the secret room. However, they’d assumed only the top-level people would be sent, as it wasn’t likely everyone knew about the room or the offline computer.

  Fabio worried they’d miscalculated when more people didn’t come spilling in to stop them. The group made their way towards the door going into the facility. Eunice went through the door first, with Collosa and Fabio right there with him. They cleared the first floor without running into anyone. They found seven people holed in a single bedroom on two, and Jones ordered them to be restrained and watched. Geeks, two of which had weapons, but weren’t fast enough to use them.

  Jones left a single guard to watch the geeks, and the remainder of the team went to the third floor, where a firefight was in progress. They’d heard it from two, but you clear areas as you go, otherwise you have people come in behind you and kill you dead.

  When they made it to three, they came in from the side, to be certain they hit the bad guys and not their own people. Something had gone wrong, because these people were supposed to have met them in the garage, but they’d come here instead.

  Kelsey had known she might have to hack a computer with people shooting in the next room, but knowing it was possible and then actually doing it weren’t the same thing.

  Aaron Drake was in the room with her, and everyone else was outside it, shooting at others and trying not to get shot. She had no idea where her men were, but she hoped they stayed away until... crap. No. She couldn’t hope that.

  Fuck. She’d made it into the OS, and she had data moving from the computer’s hard drive to a high-speed flash drive as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, she ran an explosives detector around the body of the computer.

  “We’re going to need Fabio to open the case,” she told Aaron. Turns out, Fabio is an explosives expert on top of everything else. The idea of him trying to open this case terrified her, but she kept reminding herself he’d be good at any fucking thing he did.

  She and Aaron heard the high-pitched beeps of the wall unit on the other side of the wall at the same time. She went to her knees behind the desk, just her eyes over the top to watch the do
or.

  “Get your weapon out,” Aaron told her. “Make sure the safety isn’t engaged. Try not to shoot me, but if you do, it isn’t the end of the world. I’ll heal. Just make sure you get the bad guys, too.”

  She wanted to assure him she wouldn’t shoot him, but she remembered how many times she’d shot someone on her side in the simulations, so she kept her mouth shut.

  The computer beeped, the hard drive made a grinding noise, and she knew what was about to happen. Someone had engaged the self-destruct sequence from the keypad. No one was coming in. She yanked the USB drive from the slot and leaped to the wall farthest from the unit, grabbing Aaron on the way and dragging him with her.

  The explosion slammed her into the wall. Fire was all around her and her arms burned like nothing she’d experienced since becoming a vampire. Then someone was beating her arms, her back, her legs.

  Her face was hot, but wasn’t severely burned. She felt more heat in front of it, and then the scent of the most savory blood ever. Fuck. She heard someone speaking, as if they were down the street. “Drink.”

  Blood flowed into her mouth, so she drank from the dragon, and then later, for the first time, mongoose blood flowed into her mouth, and she swallowed it down as fast as it came.

  She was moved to the roof, in James’s arms while she sucked on Eunice’s arm. A helicopter landed on the roof, and the arm was removed from her mouth. She curled into James’s chest, let him carry her, and wished she could black out from the pain.

  Eunice felt her consciousness return fifteen minutes later, while they were still in the copter, but his heart didn’t settle in his chest until he gazed into her eyes and saw intelligence. They’d opened once before, but no one had been home.

  She pushed his arm away, and he put it back.

  “Drink. You lost a lot of blood, and you’re burned.”

  “Where’s Fabio?”

  “I’m right here.” Fabio’s face came around the side of Eunice’s shoulder. “Everyone’s safe. A few of our people are hurt, but none so bad they can’t wait until we transfer over to the plane before they change and heal.”

  “Aaron?” He wouldn’t be able to change on the plane.

  “Bastard’s strong enough to heal without changing. He’s fine.”

  “And my parents were married when I was conceived, for the record.” Aaron stood over James, behind him, and leaned down. “They thought Eunice’s blood would help you the most, but you’re welcome to more of mine.”

  “I haven’t been burned since I was turned. Fuck, everything hurts. What happened to my ass?” She tried to move, but her legs wouldn’t work. “I can’t move my legs.”

  “We dug pieces of the desk out of your spine,” Mira told her. “You’ve never healed damage like this, right?”

  “No.”

  “Mongoose is your animal?”

  “That’s the working theory.”

  “Since Aaron’s offering, switch off to him and I’ll talk you through what you need to do, but let’s do this telepathically. Can you open up a conduit?”

  Kelsey did so, and Mira spoke in her head. I was trained by powerful Strigorii. I picked up some stuff. Your grizzly needs to put you down, so you’re lying flat. Stretcher would be good, since they’re going to have to move you to the plane.

  Makes sense, but I don't think I'm going to heal much in the next thirty minutes. I'll ask them to line me up flat once we're in the plane. She started to mention that she’d heal a lot faster if people started having sex around them, but she wasn’t certain she wanted Mira to know that about her. It’ll be good if Etta is notified I’ll need help once we’ve landed.

  I’m hoping we can have you well on the way towards that before we land. How close are you to your three men?

  Pretty close.

  29

  Eunice wanted to be the one to feed Kelsey, but Mira said he’d given her enough for now. So, he watched while she fed from Aaron Drake, Fabio, and then Collosa. She drank the most from the grizzly, but Mira said that was only because he had more to give.

  She’d been a dried husk with pieces missing, and it’d felt like a piece of him was gone. Not just his heart, but his soul, his aura, his mind. While she drank from Collosa on the plane, he leaned over and propped his elbows on the arm of the sofa they’d put her on. He took her boots off and began to massage her feet.

  “Don’t they, like, soak vampires in blood when they’re critically injured?” he asked. It was a myth, but he figured there was probably some truth to it.

  Mira lifted an eyebrow at him. “If the burns don’t heal right, we might rub some blood on them, but let’s try it the old-fashioned way first, and let her drink. Her body’s using it as fast as she can drink it — restoring critical systems first. Skin will be healed last.”

  The back of the plane smelled like wolves and a hawk — shapeshifters who’d changed to heal. As soon as the burgers were ready, they’d change back and eat as human.

  Eunice was starving too, but nothing could pull him away from Kelsey.

  Her eyes opened and those beautiful hazel eyes with gold flecks met his gaze. “I can’t feel it. You may as well stop.”

  “On a human, massage would bring blood flow and begin to wake the nerves. I’m going to assume it’s a similar process for vampires.”

  He sensed Mira telepathing, and he aimed his thoughts at Kelsey. After being so afraid she was injured beyond what she could repair, he needed the connection to her. Part of the desktop had locked in her spine just below her neck. A few inches higher and it would’ve hit the part that kills vampires. For a few terrifying seconds, he’d thought she was gone.

  What is Mira telling you?

  That it’s making you feel better, so I shouldn’t ask you to stop. You’ve never wanted me to telepath with you before. Are you okay?

  I’m fine, but you aren’t.

  Mira tells me I will be. Have you ever seen a vampire in a wheelchair? No. We can regenerate everything except heart and brainstem. Spinal cord might take a little longer, but it’ll happen.

  Are you still hurting?

  She didn’t answer, so he asked a different way. Okay, I can sense you’re in pain, but I can’t get a handle on how bad it is.

  I’ll be okay. Pain at this point is a gauge, so I’m thankful for it. It means I’m alive. Besides, it’s steady. I can deal. I was wearing a bulletproof vest and fireproof pants. Why am I burned all over?

  Your arms caught fire, and it spread over your skin, under the fireproof fabric. Your spine was hit above the vest, in the back. The pants were ripped and torn by flying debris, so the fire got to you that way, too.

  Kelsey was in and out of it for the rest of the plane ride, and since they landed during the day in Chattanooga, she was taken to Marco on Signal Mountain in a lightproof box.

  Eunice wanted her home, but Mira made a good argument for her going to her Master’s home to heal, and Fabio had agreed with her.

  Besides providing blood for Kelsey, Marco’s flock provided sexual energy as well. The Master Vampire had two wolves fuck right beside her, and she was told to put her hands on them and drink from them as they came.

  Direct energy, straight from the source, was such a rush.

  And when they finished, a cougar and a human were brought in, and she was told to only drink from the cougar.

  The Dragon King was brought to her again, and while she drank from his arm, he told her how brave she’d been.

  “You did the job, Kelsey, and you did it admirably. You worked with a firefight just outside the door, and don’t think I’m clueless about the kind of focus that took. Never doubt how brave you are, or what you’re made of.” He ran a hand down her hair without moving the mouth sucking at his other arm. “And you immediately knew a bomb was about to go off. I didn’t catch it. You kept both of us from being injured as badly as we could’ve been.” Another stroke. “It’s been a long time since I’ve felt protective, almost fatherly, over a young vampire. I spoke with my
wife about it, and she’s of the opinion it makes perfect sense.”

  Fatherly? Well, that was new. She wanted to ask how it made sense, but she didn’t dare open up a telepathic connection without his permission.

  “The way I brought you in, agreeing to your upbringing, and then when you add in the connection I see and feel between you and the three men you live with — men I consider mine — she’s probably right, which I have to say is bloody annoying sometimes. Her being right in general, not being right about you.”

  Kelsey had drunk enough from him, and she carefully removed her fangs, pulled them in, and tongued the holes in his arm to promote healing.

  “If you go with us on a mission in the future, I’m going to want to feed you before we go in, so if you get a small injury, you’ll more likely be able to heal it quickly.”

  “I don’t know what to say, other than to thank you again for the gift of your blood.” She looked at her arms and back up to him. “The burns are visibly better in only the time it took me to drink.”

  “I know you’ve been feeding practically one after another, your body going through the blood as fast as you can drink it, but I’d like you to take fifteen to thirty minutes to sit in the quiet and meditate, before you feed again. Visualize my energy healing whatever hurts the most. Your body will send the energy to the most critical injuries first, and I believe everything critical in the short term has been healed. You should be safe to direct it to the most painful spots now.”

  “You’ve learned a lot about healing from serious injury, I imagine.”

  “I have.” He sighed. “The sad truth is, sexual playthings are rarely taught how to heal themselves quickly, while warriors begin to learn this from the beginning. I will explain the difference to your men, and we’ll see where they want to go with this.”