Chapter Eight
David had not been in the Blood Bank for several years. Not since an investigation had led them to the badass club with a reputation for violence. He and Diana had spent many a night there in search of a suspect, but David had never been in the basement of the establishment.
The area was far larger than he had expected, well lit, with a medieval feel from the thick stone walls and floors. He guessed the basement was far older than the building above it, which might explain not only the stone, but also the wrought iron rings attached solidly to the walls.
The club’s patrons had a penchant for wildness and over-the-top behavior, but even that didn’t justify why a quartet of men were chaining the firefighter to those rings with heavy iron shackles. Diana stood nearby, hands on her hips, inspecting the work the men were doing.
As for the men themselves, David knew Diana’s husband Ryder well, and he recognized Foley, the owner of the club. He’d met Foley during the investigation. Foley looked different, his signature swath of nearly white hair now only showing at the tips, as darker hair had grown in.
Surprisingly, what bothered David more than seeing the firefighter being chained to the wall was the niggling feeling that he knew the two other men assisting Ryder. He was fairly sure he had seen them before, but couldn’t quite place them.
“Do I know you?” he asked, wheeling close to them for a better look. His eyes narrowed as he peered at them intently, trying to confirm his suspicions.
“Bollocks, mate. We just helped you come down the stairs,” said the platinum-haired Brit who had introduced himself earlier as Blake. He was dressed in black leather and silver chains, his short hair spiked into sharp points, his look totally punk.
The other one was elegantly dressed, in a designer suit and polished shoes, his one concession to the task the lack of a tie. The man arched a brow and quickly deflected David’s question with one of his own, spoken in a smooth Latin accent. “You seem to be able to move around quite a bit, Special Agent.”
In truth, David had been able to bear some of his own weight on the awkward trip to the basement. The club lacked an elevator and his wheelchair had been too big to carry down with him in it. With the punk letting him toss his arm over his shoulder and the Latin dandy in the rear adding some additional muscle and balance, David had managed an awkward shuffle down the stairs.
“I’m getting better slowly,” he confessed, and risked a look at Maggie.
Tears shimmered in her eyes and she pressed her hands to her lips to fight back emotion. But at his glance, she said, “Why didn’t you tell me you were regaining more movement?”
He shook his head, in part chastising himself. “I didn’t want to give you false hope,” he finally admitted.
Even right after he was injured, he’d had some sensation in his lower body, and even a bit of muscle control. The damage to his spine hadn’t been complete, but it had been enough to confine him to the chair. Three years of physical therapy had strengthened the little he had left of the man he’d once been, bringing greater mobility if nothing else.
“Are you sure this will hold?” Ryder asked Foley, drawing their attention back to the reason they were gathered in the basement.
“We haven’t had much cause to hold a shifter down here, but it should keep,” Foley said, and jerked a thumb at the stairs. “I need to get back up to my patrons.”
Diana said, “Thank you for your help, Daniel.”
The man smiled, his gaze tender as he looked at her. “Anything for you, Diana. I owe you my life.” Then he bolted up the stairs, clearly eager to be away from the group.
Blake chuckled and shook his head. “Poor sod took it hard when you two opted for wedded bliss.”
The dandy elbowed Blake in the ribs. “Enough. We’ve got more serious issues here than your inane gossip.”
David couldn’t resist baiting the uptight, arrogant man. “Who’s the Count, and why is he here? In fact, why are any of them here?” he asked Diana.
“I am Don Diego, not a count. And you’re being rather ungrateful, considering I helped save your ass,” Diego replied haughtily, earning shocked gasps from Maggie and Diana, a glare from Ryder, and a crisp nudge from Blake.
“What? You mean you haven’t told him?” Diego said incredulously. “It’s been what? A few years?”
David narrowed his gaze, and once again examined the men closely.
Sudden shock punched him in the gut and stole his breath as memories roared back. He realized when he’d seen the men before—on the night of the raid that had nearly cost him his life.
But before he could react, something else snared his attention.
A low, inhuman growl erupted from the chained firefighter and he shuddered, his chains rattling like skeleton bones against the stone wall.
…
Rafe’s shudder and growl worked its way through every cell of Maggie’s body. She held her breath, trying to contain the weird pulling sensation deep inside her. Where she’d been bitten, an odd tingling started and inched along her arm, suffusing her body with heat as Rafe’s body shook violently. He groaned as if in pain.
Diana rushed toward him to offer assistance, but Ryder threw his arm in a block to keep her back. “Don’t, darlin’. You can’t trust him anymore.”
Diego walked over to Diana and held out his hand, several bullets on his palm. The silver gleamed brightly in the harsh light cast by the overheads in the basement.
Maggie watched as her friend shook her head, refusing the offer, and reached into a second holster tucked into the small of her back. She withdrew a tranquilizer gun they had secured from the FBI armory before coming to the Blood Bank. Tucked into the holder on her belt that normally held a spare magazine for her Glock were several extra tranquilizer darts.
“Thanks, but I’d rather use this,” she said, and Diego shrugged imperiously.
“If he’s not one of the sentient ones, it would be kinder to put him down now,” Diego said, but at Diana’s glare, he raised his hands in surrender and retreated to Blake’s side.
A moment later, the transformation in Rafe’s body began. Maggie winced as his muscles and ligaments screamed and stretched. The bones along his spinal column became acutely prominent and a wave ripped across them as Rafe lost his upright stance and fell to all fours, his hands flattening and reforming into large paws. Deadly long claws burst from what had once been his fingers.
The chains let him stand on all fours and lay down, but were short enough to keep him from being able to move close to them thankfully.
With a shake like a dog trying to toss water off itself, his face pushed outward, elongating to a pointed canine profile, while all along his skin, hair blossomed and thickened into a pelt of caramel-brown fur, just a shade lighter than his normal hair.
In a flash of recollection, Maggie remembered that color, and the blur of it as the beast had attacked her last night. She remembered the flash of brown as the animal had bitten deep, tearing into flesh and snapping bones with the force of its bite.
She moaned at the memory as a strange, almost painful sensation clawed into her gut as deeply as the animal had sunk its teeth into her flesh last night. Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried to quiet the shudders erupting all over her body. She slid to the floor slowly, curling into a fetal position and fighting whatever was taking hold within her.
Oh, God.
What was happening to her?
…
Diana saw Maggie drop to the floor and David hurry to her side. She wanted to go to her friend, too, but she had to give her attention to Rafe, who was quickly becoming something other than human right before her eyes. With one powerful contortion of his body and a violent ripple of muscle and snap of bone, he lost the final traces of his human self. All except one—the knowing and pained brown-gold gaze of the firefighter now trapped within the body of a beast.
He growled painfully, and emitted a keening howl that echoed against the stone walls of
the Blood Bank.
His cry was answered with the snarls of the other men in the room as they all released the vampires within them in response, ready for battle should Rafe escape his bonds.
Ryder tugged Diana farther away from the shackled firefighter as he strained to be free. But the iron chains held fast, rattling loudly as the beast fought against them. After long minutes, finally realizing he was trapped, the large wolf-like creature did what any animal might do—he bit at his wrists, trying to chew himself free.
Diana couldn’t allow Rafe to mutilate himself like that in his mindless state. She trained the tranquilizer gun on him, aiming for a spot where the dart would pierce deeply enough to deliver the sedative. It wasn’t easy. The animal’s wild struggles kept his soft spots out of sight. Finally an opening presented itself, and she fired.
The werewolf howled as the dart sank deep into the pale fur on its belly. He thrashed around fiercely, trying to dislodge the dart, but Diana’s aim had been true. Slowly, the drug took hold and his struggles lessened. For a moment it seemed like he was aware of what was happening, but then he resumed his struggles and chewing.
She loaded the gun again, not knowing how long the sedative would last. She hoped she’d have enough darts to last through the long night ahead.
As she turned to face her vampire friends, she caught sight of David kneeling by Maggie. He had eased out of his wheelchair and was supporting her in his arms as he offered words of comfort. She was shaking violently, her skin pale and drenched with sweat.
But still human, Diana thought with relief.
David looked over at her, accusation in his glare, and spit out, “You knew about this all along? About these creatures?”
She willed herself to keep her head on straight, and faced him squarely and calmly. “I knew about Ryder and his friends. I knew I could count on them. But I did not ask them to help me that night. Or you.”
“They were the ones who pulled me from the fire the night of the raid?” he gritted out.
It would be impossible to deny it with Ryder and his undead friends standing close by, watching her back. Just as they had that night. Just as they’d safeguarded David and pulled him free when the room he’d been in was bombed.
She tipped her head at her two vampire friends. “Diego and Blake carried you and the other agent out of the fire.”
“We would have gotten more of you out of there, but the fire got too bad,” Diego said, sadness in his voice.
Blake added matter of factly, “Vamps don’t do fire very well.”
…
“Vamps? As in vampires?” David asked, stunned. Disbelief rang through his whole body. But as he looked from one man to the other, he could not deny what he was seeing. Their eyes gleamed with unnatural neon light. Brilliant white fangs burst from beneath their upper lips in deadly confirmation of what they were.
But even as he acknowledged the impossible existence of creatures he could no longer deny, he remembered all too clearly what else had happened that fateful night. Remembered their faces, looking much as they did right now. And recalled what had happened in the moments just before the explosions that had nearly killed him.
He turned to stare at Diana. “I saw you shot that night. And yet here you are, still alive.”
“Barely,” she replied in a painful whisper, shocking him.
“I tried to protect her, but a second bullet tore through me and into her,” Ryder explained, laying his hands on his wife’s shoulders soothingly.
A vampire’s wife, David thought, scarcely able to comprehend. A very pregnant vampire’s wife.
“It’s his baby. A vampire baby?” David challenged, his mind on overload with everything being revealed. Both before his eyes and via the too-vivid memories of that night flooding through him.
“It’s a lot to explain right now, and Maggie needs to be out of here,” Diana said, her voice shaky, but with control returning.
David had no doubt she was right. Maggie quaked in his arms, in obvious mental and physical distress. Her skin was chilled by the sweat that covered her body. Maybe some distance from the now-inhuman firefighter would help restore peace to her.
“You need to be out of here, too,” Ryder said to Diana, which normally would have riled her, David understood. She surprised them both with her placid response.
“I’m fine. I need to be here for him,” she said tilting her head at Rafe.
Diego held out his hand for the tranquilizer gun. “No. We’ll take care of him until the morning. You need to get some rest. You don’t look so well.”
David had been so engaged in everything else, he hadn’t noticed how pale Diana had gotten nor the dark smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes.
Maggie shuddered in his arms and whimpered, and he knew for both their sakes, it was time to leave.
“Let’s roll,” he said.
Diana shook her head, determination in her stance. “Not until I get the samples we need. Hand me Maggie’s bag.”
David grabbed the forensics kit from Maggie’s side and passed it to her, but Ryder was immediately there with an offer of help.
“I’d appreciate that,” she said, worrying David with her easy acquiescence. She must really not be feeling well to allow Ryder to assist with the investigation, since that might well compromise the chain of evidence. Then he laughed silently at that thought. No one would believe a chain of evidence that led them to a fucking werewolf.
As David attempted to soothe Maggie, Diana and Ryder collected blood and fur samples, although the chained beast roused in protest at their violation of his body. After another shot with a third dart, mercifully, the animal passed out. Gingerly and with great caution, they managed to get a bite print in addition to the other evidence.
Diana, however, made sure that she was the one who carefully placed all the samples into evidence bags.
Then she finally returned to David’s side. How many times had they been in tough spots when he had relied on her and she on him? Regret and guilt over the distance between them almost overwhelmed him, but he had to stay in control. Maggie needed him, and so did Diana.
“How is she?” Diana asked.
Maggie had calmed somewhat during the delay, but she was still out of it.
“She’s not herself. We should get going. That is, if you’re done,” he said.
“I’m done,” she answered quickly, with a vain attempt at a tired smile.
David sensed that her words were about more than the evidence she had collected. It was as if she had reached the end of her physical limits and was barely hanging on.
“Then let’s go,” he said, unwilling to inflict any more hurt on his ex-partner.
Chapter Nine
Diana was filled with relief that Ryder had the sleek black sedan waiting for them again outside the Blood Bank. The men bundled Maggie into the back seat, the driver surprisingly blasé about it, until Ryder explained, “He’s one of us.”
David worked his way onto the seat beside his ex-fiancée, displaying the greater mobility he’d been hiding. Diana wondered why he hadn’t revealed it earlier that day when he’d driven to the crime scene.
She tried not to be pissed at her former partner. Make that their partner. He was on this case with them, and now he was part of their Scooby Gang whether he liked it or not.
And now Maggie was no longer the way she had been.
She was different.
Different like Diana was.
Different like David was, too, though not in the same way.
“Take us home,” Ryder said.
As David began to protest, Diana urged David not to argue. “We’ll be able to handle Maggie better at our place. If any help is needed, Melissa is nearby and Ryder will be also,” she said, and was glad David didn’t fight her.
She sat beside Maggie, her gut twisting with each shudder of her friend’s body. Ryder sat in front beside the driver, shooting anxious glances back each time Maggie whimpered. After nearly ten minu
tes, Maggie let out a long, relieved sigh.
“How are you doing, Mags?” David asked, stroking back her hair from her face, his actions gentle and filled with love.
Without moving or opening her eyes, Maggie uttered one word, “Spent.”
Diana understood all too well, having felt like that way too often lately. She was feeling that way right now. Exhausted beyond measure.
The turbulence of the day and night had taxed her and all she wanted to do was to climb into bed. But first they had to deal with Maggie, and then she had to handle David and all the unanswered questions he likely still had bottled inside . Nonetheless, she was grateful for the slight thaw in him earlier. It gave her hope.
When they reached their apartment building, the driver quickly got out David’s wheelchair and he slipped into it. Ryder helped Maggie to her feet, but then she curled into David’s lap and he wrapped one arm around her. At his pained look, Ryder assisted, pushing the chair to the elevator.
Inside the condo, Ryder wheeled Maggie and David toward the door of their guest room. “Let’s get Maggie settled. I can have Melissa come down—”
“No,” Maggie said. “Tomorrow,” she added, her single-word bursts clearly taxing her.
Diana shared a brief look with her husband. “Okay. Tomorrow, Mags. Go get some rest.”
Maggie nodded weakly and Ryder helped push them into the guest room, Diana trailing behind.
When they reached the bed, Maggie eased onto it, but when David went to move away, she said, “Don’t go.”
“Are you sure?” David asked, and when Maggie confirmed it with a nod, her gaze never wavering from David’s, Diana knew it was time for her and Ryder to leave.
“We’ll see you two in the morning,” she said, and after she closed the door to the guest room, Ryder glanced at her anxiously.
“What are you going to do about her and Rafe?” he asked, leaning by the door, arms tucked across his chest.
Thought after thought slipped through her mind, but in reality, she knew there was just one viable option. “The only thing I can do,” she said. “Find some shifters who’ll explain to us what’s happening.”
Born to Love (The Vampire Reborn Series) (Entangled Ignite) Page 6