He leapt up the porch steps in one bound and walked into the cabin where he found Paige emerging from the bedroom. Her blue-green eyes were troubled when they met his, but she forced a smile. Grabbing his clothes, he shoved them into the duffel bag Emma had given to him and slung it over his shoulder.
“Ready?” he inquired.
“Yes.” She waited for him to leave the cabin before following behind. Stepping onto the porch, Ian froze immediately as the strong stench of rot and decay drifted toward him on the breeze flowing through the mountains. He’d smelled landfills in August with a better aroma than what reached him now. A rock lodged in his stomach, he couldn’t see who was emitting the stench, but he knew immediately at least one murderous vampire was within five miles of the cabin. Throwing his arm out, he halted Paige before she could take another step.
“What’s the matter?” she asked nervously.
“The kind of vampire you dislike so much is near.”
Her mouth parted, her bag plopped onto the porch as she scanned the woods. “How can you tell?”
“I can smell it.”
She gave a snort of disbelief. “You can smell a vampire?”
“I can smell a killer vampire. A normal vampire doesn’t emit this particular aroma.”
Some of the color drained from her face. “How?”
Paige almost grabbed hold of him when he shook his head and stepped away from her. She strained to see through the trees his eyes were focused on, but nothing moved amongst the foliage. “I don’t see anyone.”
“They’re there,” he murmured.
Those words chilled her more than the thunderous look on his face. “They?”
“Yes.”
“Can we get to the pickup?”
“No.”
The word had just left his mouth when she saw figures emerging from the tree line. Paige’s heartbeat escalated, a chill slid down her spine as she watched two men and a woman step onto the cleared land. The fog drifting low across the grass obscured their feet and gave them the impression of spectral-like figures. Paige swallowed heavily, her fingers itched for a weapon.
“Stay behind me,” he commanded.
“Ian…” she started to protest.
“These vampires won’t play with you and tug on your hair, Paige. They’ll tear out your throat before you know they’re there. I won’t lose you.”
She swallowed down the lump in her throat as the three of them stopped before the porch. The woman reminded her of a fairy with her short pixie blond hair sticking up at every angle around her angular face. Her features were as small and diminutive as her size. Paige felt like she could lift her leg and stomp on her. She may look like a flyswatter would take her down, but Paige knew it would take a lot more than that.
The man to the right of the woman looked to be in his mid to late forties while the other looked closer to thirty. Both the men had bags under their eyes and shadows lining them. Their upper lips curled into sneers at Ian before they turned their attention to her. All of their eyes glistened like rubies in the dusk settling over the clearing. A smile curved the woman’s mouth as her gaze raked Ian from head to toe and back again.
“Well, now, who might you be?” the woman purred.
Paige bristled at the woman’s words and thrust her shoulders back. She’d gladly stomp the pixie looking woman if she kept undressing Ian with her eyes like that. “No one you should mess with,” Ian replied.
Ian’s gaze slid over them, mentally tallying up their weaknesses and which one would make the first move. He glanced back at Paige, but she remained unmoving with her chin jutting out. His eyes traveled to the still open cabin door. He could get her shoved inside before she knew what was happening.
“We have no bone to pick with you,” the older of the men said. “We’re only here for the girl.”
“What do you want me for?” Paige inquired.
One of the men smiled at her in a leering way that caused a snarl to tear from Ian. Paige’s hand on his arm stopped him from launching at the man, but the man did take an abrupt step back. “There’s someone who would like to see you,” the woman replied.
Despite her training to remain calm, Paige’s heart knocked against her ribs. Her gaze flew to the tree line, but she didn’t see anyone else out there. Beside her, Ian stiffened, his nostrils flared as he scented the air and scanned their surroundings. She couldn’t see anyone else out there, but she didn’t have his eyes, and she certainly didn’t have his nose.
Ian focused on the three before him again as the woods and surrounding area remained clear. Whoever had sent them here, had the brains to stay away. “If you plan to survive, I suggest you leave,” Ian told them.
“We really don’t want to fight you,” the younger man said. “Just give us the girl.”
Ian lifted his arm and held it in front of Paige, he moved forward in such a way his body almost completely blocked hers. “That’s never going to happen.”
Paige’s eyes flew up to him when the three vampires moved closer. She couldn’t allow him to be hurt because of her. “Look…” the younger man started.
“If you say one more word, I’ll rip out your tongue. Now, I’m only going to tell you this one more time; I’ll kill every one of you before you ever lay a hand on her. I suggest turning around, going back to whoever sent you here, and telling him he’s fucking with the wrong vampire. I will find him, and I will kill him.”
Paige’s mouth fell, not because of his words, though she couldn’t remember the last time someone had defended her, but because his skin looked to be taking on a strange, reddish black hue. It had to be because of the setting sun, she told herself. What else could it be?
The woman placed her foot on the bottom step and rested her elbow on her knee. Paige tried to move around Ian; he kept his arm firmly pressed into her shoulder and his body in front of hers. Frustration filled her, but she’d have better luck at moving a mountain than budging the large man before her. He pushed her back another step, angling her toward the door as the woman climbed onto the stair.
“We can’t do that,” she replied.
“Don’t come any closer,” he warned.
The woman’s eyes ran over him again. “And what are you going to do to stop me?”
“You’re not going to like the answer to that question,” Ian growled.
A smile played at the woman’s eyes; she licked her lips as her eyes flickered to Paige. “I think I will.”
The woman burst forward in a wave of speed Ian had been anticipating. He lunged to the side, throwing up his arm and pushing Paige back. He’d been hoping to shove her into the cabin, but she sidestepped at the last second and bumped into the frame instead of going through the door. The woman crashed into him, but it hadn’t been him she’d gone for, Paige was her main prey.
A knife the woman brandished from a holster on her hip sliced across his ribcage, spilling his blood. A hiss escaped him, he dodged backward, sucking in his stomach as she swung the knife at him again. He grabbed hold of her arm and smashed it over his knee. The bone gave way with a resounding crack, the jagged piece of it sliced through her skin and burst out of her forearm. The woman squealed, her fingers released the knife. It clattered onto the porch before he shoved her down the stairs.
The two men ran at the porch, but instead of running up the stairs, they leapt over the banister and landed only feet away from him and Paige. “Get inside, Paige!” he bellowed at her.
Paige’s head spun over the velocity and brutality of the attack. The realization Ian had been cut and was now bleeding caused her to take a step toward him. She couldn’t stand the sight of the blood spilling down his side. He didn’t seem to be aware of it though and showed no sign of discomfort as he spun to face the other two vampires.
The woman’s bone protruded from her arm, but she still spit with fury. Violence vibrated through the air; Paige could almost taste the coppery blood spilling onto the ground. Her hands fisted; she braced herself for
the woman’s attack. She may not have a weapon, but she’d never backed down from a fight, and she wasn’t about to start now.
Before she could move to help him, Ian spun, grabbed hold of her arms and pushed her through the doorway. She took a staggering step and almost fell on her ass, but managed to keep her balance by spinning her arms. Turning away from the chaos reigning outside, she searched frantically for anything to use as a weapon. She sprinted into the living room, snatched up the small table beside the couch and lifted it over her head.
With a loud grunt, she smashed it onto the ground. Bits of debris scattered around the room, her arms vibrated from the force of the impact, but she was rewarded with a few jagged pieces of wood she could use. Grabbing hold of a foot long sliver, she spun away from the table just as the window of the living room blew apart.
A startled cry escaped her; she threw her arms up as glass and wood sprayed over her. Shards of glass sliced across her arms and tore into her flesh. Wood bounced off of her, knocking her back a step. Thrown through the window, Ian slid across the floor on his back. He came to a stop only a foot away from her. At first she thought it was blood, and perhaps dirt streaking his skin, but that made no sense, the blackish red color covered him from head to toe. She realized the color she’d believed she’d seen on him earlier hadn’t actually been the sun. It really had been his skin.
The reddish black hue brought to mind the images of demons she’d seen over the years in artwork and books. Paige couldn’t stop her jaw from dropping as her gaze continued to rake over his strangely shaded, massive frame. How was that possible?
Finally tearing her gaze away from him, she looked up as the younger looking male vamp, and woman, stepped in front of the ruined window. Before she could react, Ian shot to his feet and raced across the floor at them. She didn’t have time to blink before he launched at the man, seized hold of his throat and tumbled across the porch with the man in his grasp. The porch banister snapped like a locust tree in a hurricane beneath the force of their impact. The woman spun away from the window to go after them.
Shaking herself off, Paige turned toward the door, but then she recalled the brand new doorway in the middle of the living room. She ran across the room and poked her head cautiously out of the shattered window before leaping out. The disconcerting and stomach turning spectacle of the older vamp’s head lying only feet away, caused her to hesitate by the shattered remains of the window. She didn’t know where his body was, and she didn’t look in order to find out.
Ian and the other man rolled across the lawn in a blur of motion that made it impossible for her to differentiate one from the other. The woman had no problem as she raced across the lawn and flung herself onto Ian’s back. The force of her weight halted the aggressive rolling across the grass. More blood spilled from Ian as the woman beat at his back and tore at his clothes. Pulse pounding wrath burst through Paige, she’d wanted to pummel Ian more than a few times, but no one else was ever going to hurt him.
She leapt over the broken railing and raced across the yard toward them. Ian threw his arm back and twisted around to clutch the woman’s broken arm. A screech escaped the woman when he twisted the dangling appendage up toward her back, bending the shattered bone in an awkward direction. Blood streaked Ian’s face and clothing, but his face was expressionless when he lifted his foot, placed it in the vampire’s stomach and shoved her away. The woman reeled backward so fast Paige barely had enough time to get out of the way before she sprawled on the ground.
Ian turned back to the man and drove his hand through the man’s chest. The sound it made reminded her of a ball hitting a bat. The man’s eyes bugged as he grabbed at Ian’s wrist, but Ian wrenched backward mercilessly. He crushed the heart in his hand as he drove his left fist into the man’s cheek. Bone caved beneath the powerful force of the blow, the man’s feet kicked on the ground before finally going still.
The woman rolled over, but she was slower than she had been. Before she could react, Ian grabbed hold of her head and twisted it around so forcefully it actually came around again. The woman’s eyes bugged from her head; stuttering sounds of anguish escaped her as her hands flailed wildly at her distorted head. Paige skidded to a halt a few feet away from them. Ian’s eyes were the same color as the blood coating him when he lifted his head to look at her.
He held his blood covered hand out to her and gestured at the makeshift stake. “Give it to me.”
Paige had come out here with the purpose of putting one of these monsters down; she realized now this wasn’t her world. She’d been deluding herself into thinking she’d be anywhere near as effective against a vampire as the hunters who had taken her in. Handing the stake out to him, a sick sensation settled in her stomach as she realized she’d been nothing but a pawn to the hunters she’d believed were trying to help her.
No normal human could hope to take on one of these creatures and survive. The woman’s freaking head was completely twisted around, and she was still moving and trying to fight! They may not all look like Ian did, with the deep reddish black swirling over his skin and turning him nearly the color of charcoal, but they were all far more lethal than she was.
Ian took the stake from her and grabbing hold of the woman, drove it deep into her heart. The woman howled and clawed at the stake; her face twisted grotesquely as she spat at him before crumpling to the ground. Ian didn’t give her another second’s worth of attention. Turning away, he frowned at Paige’s ashen skin and bloodless lips. He knew blood covered him, knew what she’d witnessed, and he would have done anything to have prevented her from seeing it, but this was the life she had chosen.
“Are you ok?” he demanded.
Taking a deep breath, Paige waved a dismissive hand at him. She was extremely proud her hand didn’t shake. “I’m fine.”
“What you just saw…”
“I’ve seen worse, well maybe not worse, but close to it. I told you I know what your kind is capable of.”
Ian’s eyes narrowed at her words. “I’m not a monster.”
“That’s not what I meant!” she gushed out. She ignored the blood coating him as she grabbed hold of his arm. What she’d seen had left her rattled, but she knew what kind of a man he was. “I know you’re not a monster, Ian.” He remained immobile, before his shoulders slumped and some of the tension eased from his body at her words. She kept hold of his arm, refusing to release him, needing the contact with his body. “Why is your skin like that?” she asked.
Ian glanced down at himself, an eyebrow shot up when he saw the reddish black color suffusing his body and pulsating through his veins. He’d only seen something like it once before, with Ethan. If he’d still needed confirmation she was his mate, that color swirling through his body would have done it. Now it only made him realize his brother wasn’t the only one who would be capable of breaking the rules governing their kind, not when it came to her. There was little he wouldn’t be able to do when it came to keeping her alive.
“It’s something that seems to happen to purebloods,” he murmured. “Or at least the only other vampire I’ve seen it happen to is Ethan.”
“What is it? What causes it?”
“I don’t know what it is,” he admitted. “But when our mate is endangered it comes out in us.”
He flexed his hands, relishing the power swirling throughout his system. He could take on ten more vampires right now, and he knew he could and would destroy anyone who looked to hurt her.
He wiped the blood away from his face with the back of his arm before gesturing toward the house. “We have to go,” he said gruffly.
“Are there more nearby?” she asked.
“No, not yet, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be, and I’m not taking any chances with you.”
She blinked at him as if she didn’t hear him before nodding. Glancing at the bodies surrounding him, his shoulders slumped. All he’d ever wanted from life was peace, yet he and his family were constantly threatened by those who had
never been able to find any peace in their own lives.
Turning away, he swiftly climbed the porch to pick up the duffel bag he’d left there and to retrieve Paige’s bag. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he told her when he rejoined her. He placed both of their bags near her feet.
Paige felt hollow when she met his gaze. It was never going to end, she knew that now, her father would hunt her until the day one of them died. “It’s my fault, they came here for me.”
“No, it’s not. I have to bury the bodies. Wait here for a few minutes.”
“You’re going to dig a grave in a few…” her question trailed off. He’d taken out three vampires on his own, could run forty miles in five minutes, of course he could dig a grave in a matter of minutes.
“Your back!” she gasped when he turned away from her. His shirt had been shredded along his side and multiple times across his back. His blood had turned the blue material a deep maroon color. A jagged piece of wood from the window was still embedded near his shoulder blade.
He absently glanced at it over his shoulder before grabbing a shovel from the shed. “It’s fine.”
Paige remained immobile as she watched him walk to the edge of the woods. She stood in awed silence as he rapidly sliced through the earth to dig a grave large enough to store the three bodies. Breaking free of her strange paralysis and shock, she grabbed their bags and walked over to toss their bags into the back of the truck.
She realized now the hunters had lied to her; she could never be the vampire killer they’d told her she could be. The events that had unfolded here had finally jarred free her memories of the night she’d been attacked in the alley. Nabel had been with her, but he’d sent her into that alley alone as bait to lure in a vampire he’d sensed nearby. So excited by the possibility that vampire just may be her father, she’d gone willingly, but she’d believed she’d stand a chance against him in a fight. She knew now she never would have; Nabel would have realized that too. She’d been the bait, and thankfully Ian had come along to save her.
The Vampire Awakenings Bundle: Books 1-5 Page 100