All Souls’ Night: A Midnight Doms Boxset

by Renee Rose

  I love you. And I think I love Alex, too. Or at least, I know it would be so easy to fall in love with him as well. I don’t know how I can say that after such a short period of time, but I don’t know any other way of describing how much my heart is breaking as I write these words. I wish a hard spanking over your lap could fix all my problems. I would take one every single night for the rest of my life if it did, and if it restored your trust in me. But we both know it’s not that simple.

  Please take care of yourself and Alex. I can tell, he really does love you. I know you two will be happier without all this baggage I’d bring into the relationship, so live in love with him.

  All my heart,

  Cupcake

  I hand the letter to Alex, and wipe the shock from my face.

  “She doesn’t say where she’s going.” The panic in Alex’s eyes and voice is enough to snap me out of my stupor.

  I thumb my phone to my contacts and slam it to my ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Slash, can you meet me and Alex at Club Toxic? I need your help.”

  “I’m already here. We’ve got problems. It’s Zoe and Karina. They’re in trouble.”

  A fireball flares in the pit of my stomach. “We’re on our way.”

  Chapter 9

  Sitting at the bus station, I watched the sun set, turning the sky pink and purple and eventually midnight blue. Eyes darting everywhere, I’m now pacing the bus station terminal in a secluded corner. I wipe my sweaty palms on my yoga pants, my stomach a roiling mess. The view of the floor-to-ceiling windows over the internet privacy cubicles affords me a view of the front entrance so I can see when Zoe approaches, but I’m hidden from most of the spacious bus station lobby.

  I pull my phone out of my sweatshirt pocket and glance at it for the tenth time in as many minutes. The glass reads 7:24 p.m. I told Zoe to meet here at seven-thirty, so I’m trying to be patient, but I navigate to the map app again to check on her progress. We both turned on the GPS to our phones so we could keep track of each other at any time. But her dot is still at the same spot she’s been for five minutes. I had zoomed in to see where she was and, though the dot showing her location was at what seemed to be some kind of warehouse, it was next to a convenience store. I just assumed she was hiding in the warehouse, trying to keep out of sight, waiting for an Uber, like I had done getting to the bus station.

  The plan was this: I bought bus tickets online so we could get out of town as soon as possible. Then I hoofed it to the nearest grocery store, where I withdrew the max amount of money I could get from the bank ATM, which wasn’t a lot, but enough to get us on the road. Because of Zoe’s emergency stash money, which she packed when she went with Armando, we have a few thousand dollars between us.

  I told Zoe to be sure she stayed in the public eye as much as possible. Phil was ballsy, but he wasn’t stupid enough to grab her with witnesses around. And I also told her to call the cops if she saw him or his lackey prowling around. They might not be able to put him away, but at least she’d be somewhat protected.

  I grabbed an Uber to the station to wait for Zoe. With any luck, we’d be catching the Greyhound out of the city toward New Orleans at eight-fifteen, leaving Phil behind.

  Now, I look at the time—7:26 p.m.—and the map app. She’s still at the warehouse.

  Why are you still on the other side of town? I text her. Are you okay? I’m already at the bus station.

  My phone rings a few moments later. It’s Zoe.

  “What’s happening? Where are you?” I ask.

  “Karina? I don’t understand. I thought you said you had to ditch your phone because of Big Tony, and we had to meet at the warehouse to regroup.”

  My sneakers squeak on the tile as I halt. “What are you talking about? I said bus station, seven-thirty.”

  “Later, I got a text message from an unknown number.” The pitch of her voice climbs as she goes into panic mode. “It said Big Tony found you and you had to toss your phone, so you got a burner.”

  I white-knuckle my smartphone. “Get out of there, now! That wasn’t me! Zoe, run!”

  “Oh, my God! Okay!” She gasps, then screams and the call drops.

  “Zoe!” With shaking hands, I try to call her back, but it immediately goes to voicemail. “Shit!” I thumb through my contacts for the club.

  “Club Toxic, how can I help you?”

  “Roxy?”

  “Yeah, who is this?”

  “Karina! Is Armando there? This is an emergency. Zoe’s in trouble.”

  “Hold on.”

  I pace, tears streaming down my cheeks. I peek around the privacy cubicle and some people are staring me down with confusion in their gazes. I’m about to disregard them when a plume of smoke curls toward the ceiling. Who the fuck is smoking inside the station?

  “This is Armando. Where is Zoe?”

  “She’s at a warehouse a few blocks from Toxic. Give me your cell number and I’ll text you the address. God, I think Phil’s caught up with her.” He gives me his cell, which I jot down on my palm with the handy pen at the cubicle, and we hang up. I copy the address from the map app and paste it into my message app, texting Armando’s phone number, adding a final message to contact me as soon as he’s with her. SEND.

  My heart jumps as the jarring fire alarm screeches over my head.

  “Fire!” One of the busy-body patrons who glared at me before is wide-eyed and running away from the smoke billowing around the corner.

  Shit. Not a smoker after all. I grab my laptop case and overnight bag, rushing to the exit like everyone else. While people scatter in all directions, I round the corner of the building toward the taxi stand. Only I don’t get farther than two steps before a hand covers my mouth and drags me and my luggage into the bushes.

  Whoever my captor is breathes heavily against my ear. “If you want to see Zoe alive, you’ll come quietly with me, got it?”

  I nod. Thank God she’s still alive.

  “I’m gonna let you go. Scream, and I make a phone call to Phil.”

  I shake my head.

  As he removes his hand, I see the tattoos on his fingers. B-I-G.

  Fuck. Big Tony. Phil’s muscle. And the son-of-a-bitch who knifed me in the alley.

  I wince as he seizes me by the arm. He glances around and drags me along with him. I scamper to keep up with his long strides. Tony pops the trunk on his Toyota Corolla rental and tosses my luggage inside.

  He drags me to the back-passenger door and shoves me into the car. The doors lock with a click of the fob he’s holding. I fumble with my phone, hands shaking so much that I can’t get it unlocked properly.

  “Give me that.” Tony snatches the device from me and tosses it into the passenger seat next to him before climbing into the car.

  The adrenaline rushing through my veins subsides, and the shakes take over my body. Every inch of me is trembling like it’s thirty degrees in the backseat. Hot tears race down my cheeks.

  Tony starts the car and navigates toward the exit as sirens and fire trucks zoom past us. As he steers the car west toward Downtown, he’s silent, and I’m uncertain about my fate. Is he taking me to Zoe? Are they kidnapping us? Or was Tony sent to take me out? If he stays within the city, I have a fighting chance of getting away.

  I close my eyes and fight the hysteria threatening to overwhelm me. I still don’t know if Zoe’s safe, or if Phil is getting rid of her while Tony takes care of me. Was Armando able to get to her? Did he save the only family I have left in this world? Or are we both finally meeting our end with this stalker?

  Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, Tony merges onto the 210 Freeway and my nerves tingle with fear. This is leading us away from Downtown, and out of the city. “Isn’t Zoe the other way?” How did I suddenly grow the balls to talk to my captor?

  “Keep your fucking mouth shut, or I’ll put a bullet in the back of your brain and put you in a dumpster.”

  “Yeah, ballistics would be all over tha
t, unless you have an unregistered firearm with you.” Geez, these balls are getting bigger by the second. I guess realizing how short my life is has given me moxie I didn’t know I possessed.

  Big Tony chuckles, and boy, does it sound Ming-the-Merciless evil. “You’re lucky. I left it at home. I guess my knife will have to do.”

  I swallow the fresh bile rising in my throat, but those testicles I’ve adopted just keep swelling. “A bit messy, don’t you think?”

  He grins at me through his rear-view mirror. “Not if it’s done right. But if you keep talking…” He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out and waves a condom. “I’ll fuck your smart little ass while I grind your face into the sand and suffocate you. No DNA, and I get my rocks off.”

  Those balls shrivel and disappear, and I stop breathing.

  “That’s what I thought.” He tucks away the condom and sits back for the ride.

  Three minutes here at Club Toxic and I’m pacing, chewing the inside of my mouth. Slash informed us that Armando left to find Zoe based on a frantic tip they got from Karina. But Karina never said where she was, and now she isn’t answering her phone.

  Theo tosses his smartphone to the desk and pounds his fist. “She’s still not answering!” He drags his hand down the hard lines of his face. “Slash, can you track her phone?”

  Slash pauses, and he doesn’t look hopeful. “You can give me her number, but if she doesn’t have her GPS on, we’re shit out of luck.”

  Theo rattles off her digits and Slash’s fingers scuttle across the keyboard again.

  I continue pacing, wondering where the hell she could be. If we had told her we were vampires, she might have stayed. She would have known Phil and his bodyguard were no match for us. She could have stopped running.

  “Sweet!” Slash’s eyes widen. “I got a hit!”

  Theo and I huddle around Slash, and a blue dot glides across a satellite map.

  “Oh, shit.” Theo points to the screen. “She’s on the 10 Freeway headed out of town. She wouldn’t leave without Zoe.” He grabs his smartphone and blurs to the door. “Alex, come with me. We’re going after her.” He points at Slash. “I’ll call you from the car. Keep us posted on where she is.”

  Theo and I take the stairs three at a time and dash to the parking lot for his Maserati.

  Big Tony rummages in the trunk, and I peek over to the passenger seat in front. My phone is not there. Damnit.

  He took the 210 Freeway to the 10 Freeway, where he exited after a long stretch of nothing. Once he turned down a secluded desert road, I gave up hope of getting anyone’s attention or escaping. He is going to get rid of me in the middle of nowhere, and there is nothing I can do about it.

  But it doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for him.

  Tony drove the car off the road for several yards, over a hill and low-growing brush, before he parked. The rental car is now facing the wide-open desert. The headlights are on, and lighting the path to where I guess my final resting place will be.

  The door flies open and he shoves my face into the cushion of the backseat. I panic. Is he going to rape me right here in the car? Before I can get my bearings, he wrenches my hands behind my back and secures them with a zip-tie.

  “Ah!” Son-of-a-bitch, that’s tight!

  Yanking me from the car, he slams the door and tugs me along. He has that damn combat knife in his hand, and a blue tarp under his arm. Oh, fuck. That doesn’t bode well. Tony marches me through the mesquite and Seguro cacti. I can’t see the road we left behind us over the hill.

  “Come on.” Tony shoves me forward, but I drag my feet, fighting him every step of the way. “Stop struggling, bitch!”

  I give him all I’ve got, wriggling in his grasp, and he cracks the butt of his knife to my head. The world spins and I crash to the ground, a rock nailing my kneecap. I cry out, squirming in the dirt.

  He hauls me to my feet and grabs my face, nose-to-nose with me. “The more you struggle, the longer I torture you.”

  “Okay.” I pant, and nod my throbbing head. “Okay, I’ll cooperate.”

  He laughs. “Too late for that, sweetheart.” Tony spins on his heel and continues toward a clearing about thirty yards ahead, where he begins to lay out the tarp.

  I bolt.

  Out of the path of the headlights, I can’t see a thing, and my knee hurts, but this is my last chance to either get away, or avoid a fate worse than death, which is getting raped by Tony while I choke on desert sand and scorpions.

  Big Tony moves pretty fast for a man his size, and he is on my tail. With a bum knee, I can’t outrun him. We go down in a cloud of dirt and grunts. His full weight crushes me and knocks the wind from my lungs. I struggle for air, but come up empty.

  Tony drags me by the scruff of my sweatshirt, choking me. “You fucking little cunt. You just made this the worst night of your fucking life, and the best night of mine.”

  I grimace and try to cough, but I don’t have anything in my lungs to expel. He drops me and I finally suck hungry gulps of air, inhaling and coughing. My wrists are wet and sting, the zip-tie cutting into my flesh. My hands throb. For a blissful moment, I’m lying on the ground, the stars fading in and out of my blurry vision in the night sky. The air is cool.

  Big Tony steps into my view, his bare-chested form standing over me. The evil grin on his face belongs to a supervillain in a comic book. And I realize…really understand, that this is my last night. That I’m going to die here in the desert. And I didn’t find out if Zoe was okay. I’ll never be able to tell Theo and Alex face-to-face that…I love them. As crazy as that sounds, I do. And I’ll never know what a happily ever after could have meant, because I ran instead of trusting them to protect me like they promised. I didn’t even give them the chance.

  Yanking me to my feet, Tony drags me to the edge of the blue tarp spread on the ground. One hand fisted in my hair, he forces me to gaze at his combat knife in the other, silhouetted in the harsh headlights like he’s showing me his favorite toy. He flips it, catches the handle blade down, and plunges it into my gut.

  Sweet Jesus, the pain.

  I can’t breathe no matter how wide I open my mouth.

  He pulls out the knife. My blood drips from and glistens on the steel. He plunges it again.

  And again. And again.

  The world tilts. The blue tarp collides with my face, and he grabs the back of my sweatpants, pulling them down over my ass. As the headlights fade to black, I hear the ravenous growls of wild animals. Tony screams.

  At least I wasn’t raped by Tony, and I’ll be dead before those wild animals can get to me.

  Chapter 10

  Her sweet blood is my beacon.

  Though we had followed Slash’s instructions to where the car was supposed to be, the road was empty. We got out and searched the area.

  Karina was nowhere to be found.

  The wind was my messenger, carrying that familiar scent of her life’s essence to me. Alex and I blurred in the direction of the breeze. Over a rise, a rental car sat, headlights blazing on and lighting up the big brute standing behind Karina, a bloody knife in his hand. Crimson streams down the front of her and he drops her to the electric-blue tarp on the ground, which is already splattered with her blood. He pulls her pants down, his cock sheathed in a condom, ready to violate her.

  I sail toward his body, dragging him into the darkness.

  His screams are not loud enough. His fear not palpable enough. He could not suffer enough for what he has done, or what he planned to do. I have dispatched him too quickly. But time is critical, and I cannot waste it on revenge.

  Blood drips from Alex’s chin, Karina is in his arms. He has righted her sweatpants. Her sweatshirt is open, and her belly covered in in what I can smell is Alex’s blood mixed with hers. Tears stream down his face. “I was able to heal her wounds, but she’s still dying! She’s lost too much blood.”

  I drop to my knees. “Karina?”

  Her eyes open a millimeter
and the corner of her mouth twitches, as if she’s trying to gift us one last smile. “Th-Theo? Al-Alex. I…love…” She falls limp in his arms, and her last breath rattles from her mouth.

  The world implodes. My heart is torn from my chest.

  “Turn her!” Alex cries.

  I can’t see, my eyes blinded by the rush of tears.

  “Theo, turn her now! She’ll be dead anyway!”

  My fangs extend and a cry of anguish pours from my lips as I scream toward the heavens. I grab the knife from the tarp and slash my wrist, forcing my blood into her mouth as Alex holds her head back. My blood spills down her throat but overflows, staining her cheeks. Ripping open my shirt, I drag the blade across my chest and hug her to me, holding her mouth to the gaping wound over my heart. Rocking her in my arms. Please!

  The pale pallor of death turns her skin gray. But I don’t know if that’s a sign of the transformation, or if she’s slipping deeper into death’s embrace.

  I keep pouring my blood into her mouth, cradling her in my arms. The only saving grace giving me a sliver of hope is the blood Alex and I fed to Karina while she was recovering at Toxic—would it be enough to prepare her body for the transformation? Did the virus infect her enough to support the fresh blood I’ve introduced into her system? And after I’ve given her several doses of my blood, Alex stops me. His eyes meet mine. Tears mingle with the blood on his chin.

  “Will it work?” I can barely choke out the words.

  Alex shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  How long we sit in the desert, holding her body between us as we weep, I cannot say. But eventually, we carry her back to my car. I wrap her in a blanket I have in my trunk. “Take her home.”

  “What are you going to do?” He grabs my arm.