“Fortunately for me, she’s not as fast as she used to be, now that she’s six months pregnant.”
“She’s still going to kick your ass.”
Stefan ran a hand through his hair. “She probably will, but she has no business being here. Not if it was a hunter you encountered, and not while she’s carrying our child.” Ian agreed with him, but he would never admit that to his sister. Pregnant or not she could probably kick all their asses. “Is anyone following us?”
At Stefan’s question, Ian realized Ethan’s eyes kept darting to the rearview mirror and Emma was focused on the side mirror. “Not that I can tell,” Emma answered. “There’s not much traffic at this time of night.”
Ian turned in the seat to look behind him. “I think if either of them had found me in the woods, they would have attacked me before I made it to the car.”
“Or they could have been waiting to see where you would go,” Stefan murmured.
“Maybe we shouldn’t involve Mandy and Jill,” Emma worried.
Ethan took hold of her hand and squeezed it. “They’ll be fine. Ian lost whoever shot at him and the vampire that attacked her.”
Stefan turned sideways in his seat to stare out the window. “You were lucky.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Ian scoffed.
“It was only one hunter, if there had been more it could have been a different outcome.”
“They hunt in packs?” Emma inquired.
Stefan rubbed at the stubble lining his chin. “Humans, who sometimes learn of our existence, usually hunt in packs. So do the true hunters, but they’re braver and stronger and will come at you one-on-one. However, sometimes you will find hunters and humans working together to rid the world of what they perceive as evil. I think they use the humans as bait, but that’s my own personal theory.”
“Hunters aren’t human?” Ian questioned. Stefan and Brian had talked about the hunters before, but none of them had really asked much about them. None of his family were vicious killers; he’d believed their chances of ever encountering a hunter were slim to none. He’d been wrong.
“No,” Stefan answered flatly.
“What are they then?” Ethan demanded.
Stefan cracked his knuckles as he continued to watch the road behind them. “Only they know for sure. I can tell you the rumors I’ve heard about them, but their origin, existence, and capabilities are secrets they guard closely.”
Emma’s hazel eyes shimmered in the lights of the few other vehicles on the road when she turned in her seat to face him. “What are the rumors?”
“That they have the strength and ability of vampires, but don’t require blood. Some vampires believe they were conjured by witches during a time when magic used to be a central part of this world. The witches created them as a way to counteract the evil of vampires.”
“Witches?” Ian snorted in disbelief.
“There are many who don’t believe vampires walk this earth, but we are living proof that isn’t true. Why do you doubt witches could walk this earth, or that they used to walk it?” Stefan asked.
Ian frowned at him. “Do you believe they did?”
“No, I think it’s a lot of bull,” Stefan said with a laugh. “I’ve been here for two hundred and sixty-nine years, and I’ve never encountered a witch. But who knows, maybe they exist.”
Emma’s hand wrapped around the headrest of her seat as she leaned closer to them, “What other rumors are there?”
Stefan shrugged. “That hunters are stronger than normal humans because they keep vampires and drink their blood to gain strength. Others believe they were created by some force for good in the world, as a way to counteract the evil vampires can wreak upon this earth.”
“What do you believe?” Ethan asked.
“I tend to go with the theory of when demons mated with humans and created vampires, they also created humans who were stronger than normal humans and had some, but not all, of the traits of a vampire. They might not, and probably don’t have to drink blood. They aren’t as strong as we are, though they are powerful. They don’t realize that not all vampires are killers. Hunters age; they’re stronger and faster than humans, but they’re different than us.”
Silence descended over the vehicle, Ian glanced down at the sleeping woman in his arms. Who and what was she? She felt and looked entirely human, but the man she’d been with had definitely been a hunter. He’d been too fast with that crossbow to be entirely human; no human would have been able to come close to nicking him with an arrow.
“Are they going to be able to find us?” Emma asked nervously.
“No, if there’s no one following us now, we should be fine,” Stefan replied.
“Can they find out where Ian lives?”
“I didn’t use my real address for anything on my college forms,” Ian answered. “I used a lot of manipulation, and changed more than a few memories, to slide through. The few friends who came to visit me at our house don’t remember how to get there.”
“You won’t be able to go back school,” Stefan said.
“I’d already figured that out,” he muttered. He’d been looking forward to his last couple of months with his friends, but after what had happened tonight, never seeing them again was probably getting off easy. Both he and this woman could be dead right now.
“I still think the family should leave home and go somewhere else, just in case,” Ethan said. “At least for a little while. We can’t take any chances the hunter or vamp can somehow track them.”
Stefan nodded his agreement. “You’re right.”
The woman’s mouth pursed, she stirred in his arms before going still again. “How is she mixed up with the hunters?” he pondered aloud.
“Are you sure she’s not a hunter?” Emma asked.
He stroked her cheek again and inhaled the heady scent of her blood. He’d never encountered human blood quite like hers, but he didn’t get an inhuman or more than human vibe from her. He hadn’t gotten one from the man she was with either, while they’d been in the bar. “I don’t sense anything superhuman or witchy about her,” he said.
Stefan scowled at him before glancing at her. “Her blood smells different, but the blood of the hunter I killed didn’t smell like that.”
“It does,” Ian agreed. “What did the blood of the hunter you killed smell like?”
“Like blood. I didn’t know it until I tasted it, but there was power in the hunter’s blood. That’s why I believe they were most likely created the same way we were.”
“Well, we won’t know what she is until she wakes up; we’ll get our answers then,” Emma said.
Stefan eyed her carefully, and Emma leaned a little further away from her. Ethan’s eyes shone the strange reddish-green color they’d become before he and Emma had completed the mating ritual. If Ethan considered this woman a threat to his wife, he’d kill her and never look back. Ian shifted, instinctively pressing her closer against his chest. Ethan’s gaze slid away to focus on the road once more, but he gripped the shoulder of Emma’s seat, keeping his arm in between her and the woman.
The woman in his arms stirred briefly before going still once more. Ethan took an exit ramp and raced down it at speeds that probably would have petrified a human, but Ian found it tame. Stefan directed him up and down the hilly roads. They drove through a small town with a bus station, hardware store, diner, a bar and other small stores that were all shut down at this time of the night or actually early morning. Leaving the town behind, they climbed higher into the mountains.
“Turn here.” At Stefan’s instruction, Ethan pulled onto a bumpy dirt drive. It twisted through the trees and climbed steadily upward. Ian yawned. It had nothing to do with him being tired and everything to do with trying to ease the pressure on his ears. Beside him, Stefan did the same thing.
A circular driveway emerged at the top of the hill; Ethan pulled the Jeep up in front of the small cabin. He parked it next to David’s sleek black Camaro. Ian s
tared at the one story log cabin illuminated by the fading moonlight. The front porch sagged beneath the weight of its years. The simple design, and the logs used to build it, brought to mind the late eighteen hundreds and the pioneers. In the distance, the lonely howl of a coyote rang through the mountains and echoed across the clearing. If they weren’t sitting in this Jeep right now, he may have believed he’d taken a step back in time.
David and Mike stood outside the cabin, leaning against the wall beside the doorway. Light flickered in one of the windows; he couldn’t tell if it was from a lamp or if they were actually using candles and lanterns inside. As soon as Ethan turned the vehicle off, the front door opened to reveal one of Emma’s best friends, Jill. Ian pushed open the Jeep door and stepped into the cool breeze stirring the night. Mandy emerged in the doorway behind Jill as they approached the cabin.
“Is she ok?” Jill inquired, anxiously bouncing on her toes.
“I gave her some of my blood, but she still needs medical attention,” Ian answered.
He stopped outside the door as Stefan walked inside. “Come in,” Stefan said over his shoulder, allowing the vampires to finally enter the home.
Jill and Mandy stepped aside to let him inside. The lights flickering inside were from a lantern sitting on the glass topped, wagon wheel coffee table in the middle of the living room. To his right, a single candle burned on the counter in the kitchen. “Are you ok?” David demanded, his gaze resting on the blood staining Ian’s shirt and the tear in it.
“Only a scratch,” he assured the man who had been like an uncle to him his entire life.
“Did she do that?” Mike, his other adopted uncle, inquired.
“No,” Ian informed them. “Should I put her on the couch?”
“There’s a bedroom back here,” Mandy said.
She hurried down the hall. The slight hitch in her step wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone with human eyesight and who didn’t know she had a prosthetic leg. The dim candlelight flickering in the room she led him into illuminated her mocha skin. Ian laid the woman carefully on the maroon quilt covering the full size bed.
Mandy opened a small medical bag and began to shuffle through it. “I have some needle and thread…”
“The punctures are already closed, but she needs blood.”
Mandy turned toward him, her deep brown eyes were filled with concern. She’d cut her black hair since he’d last seen her; it was now cropped close to her head and enhanced her high cheekbones and full mouth. “I’m only a med student,” she said. “I don’t have anything like that.”
“We can get some,” Stefan volunteered. “There’s a small emergency clinic in the next town.”
Ian’s hands lingered upon the girl; he forced himself to take a step away from her. “I’ll be the getaway.” Jill smiled after saying this, but her light words didn’t ease the tension in her sable eyes. The blond streaks she’d had when he’d first met her had faded from her mahogany, shoulder length hair.
“I’ll go with you,” Emma volunteered.
“Stay, I’ll go.” Ethan took hold of her hand and squeezed it. Emma started to protest, but Ethan pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “Help Mandy. We’ll be back soon.”
She stepped away from him as Mandy broke out a blood pressure kit and stethoscope. “I’m going to need a syringe too,” she called after them, but her attention remained focused upon the girl lying on the bed. “And make sure the blood is O negative.”
Ian found his attention riveted upon the girl while Mandy wrapped the cuff around her sinewy bicep.
Chapter Four
Ian sat up straighter in his chair and rubbed at the stubble lining his chin when the woman lying on the bed stirred. Her eyelids fluttered briefly before closing again. Ian slumped back in his chair, folded his hands in his lap, and stretched out his cramped legs. He stared at her slumbering form.
“She’s going to be fine,” Mandy assured him. “She’s still healing.”
She had his blood in her and a whole pint of someone else’s, but the knowledge couldn’t help him shake his concern for her. Mandy glanced between them before walking out of the room. “We’re going to have to change her memories,” Stefan said from the doorway.
Something within him bristled and revolted at the idea of messing with her mind, but Stefan was right. Nodding his agreement, he turned to find her startling turquoise eyes watching him. He’d expected to see fear in her gaze; he hadn’t expected the simmering fire and resentment smoldering within their depths.
Sitting forward in his seat, he folded his hands in front of him before speaking. “You’re going to be fine.”
Her forehead furrowed as she stalwartly held his gaze. Stefan shifted in the doorway, drawing her attention to him. “Do you remember what happened?” Stefan inquired.
A small flicker of unease slid through Paige when her gaze landed on the man standing in the doorway. His eyes were the same color as his raven colored hair. Black ice, she thought as she met his chilly gaze. Vampire, was her next realization. She didn’t know how she knew it; she certainly hadn’t known it about the man sitting across from her now. She still wouldn’t have suspected it, if she hadn’t seen his reddened eyes and fangs in the alleyway.
She’d escaped one hideous nightmare only to find herself right in the middle of another one. Her heartbeat picked up, something they could detect. She tried to slow its beat as she forced herself to keep her face impassive. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing her fright before they ripped out her heart, turned her into some type of blood donor pincushion, drained her dry, or whatever it was they planned to do to her.
Her lips compressed as she stared at him before turning back to the man across from her. She didn’t know why, they were both lethal, but she felt more comfortable speaking with the blond man in the chair. Maybe it was because she’d met him under more normal circumstances originally, or maybe it was his stunning, golden boy looks that made him appear more inviting and trustworthy. Whatever it was, she found herself able to deal with him a little bit better.
People assumed most of their neighbors were pleasant and normal too, until they found out they were serial killers who liked to wear human skin for fun, she reminded herself.
“Where am I?” she demanded.
“At a friend’s. You’re safe here,” Ian told her.
“Am I?”
The hoarseness of her voice drove him to his feet. He lifted the glass of water Mandy had left at her bedside and handed it out to her. She eyed it like she would the poisoned apple. “It’s only water,” he assured her.
“Is it?” she inquired.
“You are safe here,” he said again. “Besides, we wouldn’t need to poison or drug you.”
He had a point there. Paige glanced at the water again before forcing herself up in the bed. Her sore muscles protested the movement, but she refused to be lying down with this monster looming over her. Glancing around, she searched the room for a possible weapon, but she didn’t see anything she could use to defend herself. Her eyes fell on the needle stuck in her arm. If anything, she could always rip it out and stick him in the eye with it, but she’d still have to get by the one in the doorway. She didn’t think any of them would take well to her blinding golden boy, but she was willing to find out if she ever got the chance to try an escape.
“No one is safe around a monster,” she murmured when she focused on him again.
Ian’s eyebrows shot up at her words. “I can assure you, I’m not a monster.” Her jaw locked; she turned away from the glass of water he still held out to her and folded her hands in her lap. Ian focused on Stefan as he tried to quell the strange twinge her words had caused him. “Let Mandy know she’s awake.”
Stefan eyed her for a minute before stepping out of the room. “Do you remember what happened?” he asked her.
Paige refused to meet his eyes again so she stared resolutely at the wall on the other side of the room. Who is this Mandy he’s
talking about, and how many vampires were here in this house? More importantly, what were they going to do with her? She tried not to dwell on that final question; she was afraid she might go a little crazy if she did. Panicking and insanity wouldn’t do anything to help her escape this situation. No, only a level head and some damn good luck were going to get her out of here. Unfortunately, she tended to be about as lucky as the gum on the bottom of someone’s shoe.
“Of course. I suffered blood loss, not brain damage,” she retorted.
He returned the glass to the table. “Aren’t you a prickly little cactus of gratitude, I did save your life,” he drawled.
Her eyes briefly flitted toward him, a vein jumped in the corner of her eye, but she didn’t respond to him before returning her attention to staring at the wall. He folded his arms over his chest as he studied her profile. Her youthful looks belied the air of wisdom and age emanating from her. Her hair was so deep a brown it shone almost black in the flickering candlelight. The tendrils of it hung in tumbled curls to just beneath her breasts.
Movement in the doorway finally pulled his eyes away from her. Mandy yawned as she walked into the room, but she broke into a bright smile when she spotted the woman sitting up on the bed. “You’re awake!” she greeted cheerfully. She walked around the bed to stand by the girl’s side and went to grab hold of her wrist. The woman jerked away from her; she recoiled on the bed. Ian stepped forward to stop her if she decided to lash out at Mandy. Holding her hands up in a conciliatory gesture, Mandy moved back a little. “My name is Mandy. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I don’t want any of your kind touching me!” the woman countered.
Mandy’s eyes flitted briefly toward him. Taking a deep breath, she kept her hands in the air as she focused on her hostile patient once more. “I’m human,” Mandy said soothingly. “and I won’t harm you.”
The woman’s gaze raked Mandy’s body; she glanced at Ian and Stefan before looking toward Mandy again. “How do I know that?” she demanded.
The Vampire Awakenings Bundle: Books 1-5 Page 87