by T. R. Lester
“He’s a strigoi too?”
“Oh no dear. He wasn’t important enough to them to do that. He simply takes care of business for them during the day light hours and makes sure they have fresh blood supplies coming in daily.”
Grace looked at Tanner, who was turning blue again from the pressure on his neck.
“And why is he here? With you, I mean? He’s been missing for almost two weeks.” Grace asks.”
“Not missing Grace. He was staying out of sight. When I killed that girl, he was afraid it would bring suspicion to him and Francine. So, he disappeared.”
“So, they’re both in on this with you?” Grace asks him.
Neal nods.
“I do admit I made a mess of things when I killed that girl, but at the time, I only wanted a child. Someone to carry on my legacy, so to speak.”
“You bastard. You could have come to me. You could have told me what happened to you and I could have helped you. Instead you decide to go on a killing rampage, destroying everything you came in contact with. You’re not my brother, and I’m not sure if you ever were.”
Grace heard a noise behind her and looked to see Francine stumbling out of the room they had been in.
“You son of a bitch.” Francine whispered.
Neal laughed.
“I helped you when no one else did. I took care of you. I gave you a place to live and took you in. And you repay me by trying to kill me?”
“I have warned you Francine. More than once. You didn’t believe me. Had to stayed in your place, which was helping me and not trying to rule over me, you’d still be in your comfy little director chair. I told you I have no time for insolence and stupidity.”
“I’ll kill you Neal.”
Francine says.
Before Francine could take another step, she was hit from behind. The force was so great that when she hit the drywall, it cracked. The vampire was so fast that Francine didn’t have time to defend herself. It had her head back and fangs sank in before she could utter one word.
Grace watched in horror as the vampire greedily drank every last drop of blood from the viper’s neck. Francine stopped kicking, turned pale, then her whole body went limp. Yet the vampire continued to drink.
Neal drew his head back and butted Tanner in the forehead. The director went limp and Neal dropped him to the floor.
He walked over to Grace and took her by the arm, yanking her from the floor.
Grace threw a punch that landed on Neal’s right temple. He hissed and slapped her across her left cheek. Stunned, Grace shook her head and brought her knee up to nut punch him. He dodged and she his hip bone.
“I asked you to join me, you refused. It could have been like old times dear sister.”
“Fuck you Nathaniel. You will never be like you were.”
Grace drew her fist back to hit him again and he caught her hand in his and squeezed. Grace howled in pain.
“Now, you can be with me always sister.”
Neal pulled Grace up and closer to him, lifting her off the floor. She struggled as he pulled her head to the side.
As Neal sank his teeth into her neck, Grace screamed in rage. She clawed and scratched at him, at his eyes, his nose, anywhere she could reach. As he drank from her, she could feel more anxiety kick in. Feeling faint, she tried to claw at his eyes again but couldn’t seem to reach her target. He continued to drink. Grace’s heart beat sped up and she felt a coolness sweep across her body. She knew she was dying but couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Trying to focus, she dug through her memory, trying to locate facts she had stored over the years. She knew, from the symptoms she already had, that she had lost over twenty percent of her blood already. How much could she lose before it was too late? She couldn’t remember. She made one last attempt at a struggle and found she was too weak to put up a fight. As her eyes closed and the world went black, the last image she saw was of a giant black wolf barrelling at Neal, teeth bared and growling.
Chapter 21
As Gideon and Draven topped the stairs, they see a male body on the landing, a female to the side with a vampire still attached to her lifeless body via its fangs, and a little further down, they see Neal, with his teeth buried in Grace’s neck.
Draven’s sight burns red, boiling with fury. Before he can do anything, Gideon shoves by him and lunges at Neal. The wolf slams into the vampire and sends him flying backward into the wall, totally destroying the drywall and wood stud it was attached to. The top floor rumbled from the impact.
Grace was flung down the hall with the impact and Draven was trying to make his way down to her when Neal shot up from the floor and struck him in the temple.
“It’s too late for you light one.”
“You’re going to die today fucker.” Draven said.
Gideon stood and looked at Draven.
“Go to Grace.”
The wolf run down the hall and shifted to his human form when he got to her.
She was pale and lifeless. Reaching for her arm, he felt her wrist for a pulse. He found one that was thready and weak. Turning her head to the side, he saw the bite was still dripping blood. Running into the room Grace had been in, he looked around and found a towel, wet it in the sink by the door and ran back to Grace. He scooped her into his arms and applied the cool towel to her neck, trying to stop the blood flow.
“Don’t you die on me woman. You’re a hard ass. Always have been. Now act like one. Show me you want to live.”
Grace’s right eye fluttered, then stopped.
Gideon looked over his shoulder to see Draven and the strigoi going at it. He couldn’t see who was who as they were moving so fast, they had become a blur.
He saw the man on the floor move slightly. He knew the man to be Grace’s director. This was the one that she had been looking for. But why in the hell was he here? He looked over to the dead female that the vampire had finally tired of and saw it was Francine Bates.
“Looks like the old viper got what was coming to her.” Gideon said to an unconscious Grace.
He could swear he saw a small tug at the corner of her lip, as though she were trying to smile.
“Grace? Can you hear me?”
He took her hand in his. He pules was still weak, but she had one.
“Grace?”
He felt her index finger move in his hand. He called to her again and the finger, again, twitched.
“Stay with me beautiful.”
He lay her back on the floor and walked over to the man. Taking his toe, he pushed on the man’s back and he groaned.
Tanner opened one eye to see a tall buff man leaning over him without not one stitch of clothes on.
“Who the hell are you?” Tanner asks.
Gideon ignores him.
“What are you doing here?” Gideon asks.
“That’s none of your damn business.” Tanner replies.
“But it is. You see, my friend has almost died, so that makes it my business. And my other friend over there is in a fight for his life.” Gideon tells Tanner, pointing over to Draven and the vampire.
“Fuck you all.” Tanner says.
Gideon growled.
“The way I see it is you’re mixed up in this shit. Otherwise, you’d be trying to tell me what’s going on instead of being an ass clown.”
Tanner didn’t say anything.
“Ok then. I’ll take your silence as an admission.”
Gideon looked back at Grace. When he turned back to Tanner, the man had gotten on his knees and was throwing a punch straight into the wolf’s groin. Gideon howled in pain and shifted. Tanner fell back on his ass and Gideon shook himself off.
He walked over to the director and looked down at him, growling.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Gideon snorted.
“Look, I work for the strigoi, but I didn’t start all this shit. Neal did.”
Gideon growled and moved closer.
“Stop. Please stop.” Tanner begged.
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Gideon didn’t give two fucks about the bastard begging. He had endangered them all. More importantly, he had endangered Grace, and that wouldn’t go unpunished.
Gideon bared his teeth as Tanner tried to slide away from him. He took a huge paw and stood on Tanner’s pant leg, stopping his back slide.
He walked closer to the man and leaned down, nose to nose. He produced a growl that had started in the pit of his stomach and rumbled up through his chest and out of his jaws. Gideon lunged at Tanner and clamped his powerful jaws around the director’s head. He started squeezing, slowly at first, then with each breaking, creaking bone, he clamped down harder, until Tanner’s eyes were bulging.
Gideon heard teeth that had been dislodged from Tanner’s mouth hit the floor. They pinged off the tile sounding like pellets being shot at a plastic target. Tanner groaned and struggled. Gideon kept squeezing.
When Gideon saw Tanner’s eye glide across the floor and felt blood drip into his mouth, he squeezed one last time to hear Tanner’s skull being crushed flat.
Opening his mouth, he dropped Tanner to the floor and looked at Draven, who at this point was under Neal being slammed with blurring fists.
The wolf ran at Neal, knocking him off Draven. As Gideon turned to go back to Grace, he saw Draven stand and launch himself at the dark one.
Draven took the break Gideon gave him and flew at Neal. Draven was losing blood and knew he had to end this fight now. The knife he’d had when the fight started was long since gone. He had managed to get the knife lodged in Neal’s rib and when the vampire had yanked it out, he sent it skittering across the floor. Neal had inflicted numerous bites and slashes into Draven’s skin and his blood loss was showing.
As Draven lunged, Neal moved to the side.
“Don’t hold back light one.”
“Don’t worry.”
Not being one for dialogue during a fight, Draven closed his mouth and quickly punched Neal in the solar plexus, leaving him winded. Before he could recover from that, Draven followed with a quick upper cut that sent Neal stumbling back.
Draven ran at him and twisted, using his momentum to create a spin. As he neared the vampire, he angled slightly to his left and hit Neal with a cross body slam that sent him through the wall and brought the wall down on top of him.
The floor shook with the impact. Draven got to his feet and walked over to the crumbled wall. As he approached, a hand shot out from the debris and grabbed his ankle. Draven reached down and pulled a wall stud from the wreckage. He drew back just as Neal’s head appeared from beneath the heap.
Draven swung the wooden stud at Neal’s head and the wood splintered into a thousand pieces. The movement was so fast and intense that before the splinters could fall from the air, Draven reared back and kicked the vampire in the head, sending him into the opposite wall. The whole floor shook this time.
Draven watched as the wall fell on the vampire. He looked over his shoulder to see Gideon stumbling to him with Grace in his arms.
“You ok?” He asked the wolf.
“Hell no. The wall fell on us. We need to get out of here.”
“I need to kill him.” Draven said.
Before he could take a step, the floor fell from under them. They seem to be suspended in mid-air for a moment until gravity caught up with them. All three fell through the floor and through the ceiling of the ground floor.
They were covered in dust and debris. Draven shoved a piece of the floor from his chest and looked over to see Grace on her side and Gideon laid out on his back.
Before he could stand, the building started crumbling. Draven grabbed Grace and ran for the exit. Upon reaching the door, he saw it had been chained and pad locked. He grabbed the chain and twisted until it snapped, then drew his foot back and kicked the door open.
Running full speed to his truck, he placed Grace on the passenger seat and ran back in for the wolf. By the time he got back in, the whole ceiling had fell in.
He looked around trying to pinpoint the location he had left Gideon in.
“Fuck!”
Not able to see due to all the ceiling remnants, he sent his sense out to find the wolf. He leaned his head back and sniffed the air. Letting his nose lead him to Gideon, he walked across the drywall and studs, kicking them to the side as he looked for the wolf.
Finally, he saw a foot sticking out from under a large wooden beam. He bent down and started removing the wreckage so he could pull Gideon out.
The wolf groaned.
“Come on wolf man. A little help please.”
Gideon tried to wriggle around and push his way out.
When Draven got him free, he looked at the wolf and sighed.
“I can’t believe I have to carry your ass out of here naked. This is humiliating.”
Gideon snorted.
Draven reached down, grabbed the wolf’s hand and pulled him up, throwing him over his shoulder.
As he turned to run back to the exit, the rest of the building caved in, almost burying the both of them. Draven let his wings spring from his back and took flight.
“Great. Another ripped up shirt.”
He flew them up and out of the caved in building, setting them down by his truck.
He placed the wolf on the ground and ran over to check on Grace.
“Grace?”
Her eyes fluttered.
“Grace?”
He saw a smile tug at the corner of her mouth.
Gideon ambled over to him and looked at Grace.
“We need to get her to the hospital.” He told Draven.
“Put some clothes on man.”
“I don’t have any with me vampire.”
“I have some behind the seat. They should fit.”
Gideon dug behind the seat and pulled out a pair of Levi jeans, a Polo shirt and a pair of Doc Martens.
By the time he was dressed, Draven had Grace in his arms.
“I’ll drive. Is she ok?”
“She’s lost a lot of blood. But she should be ok when they get more in her.”
Gideon started the truck and headed out of the lot.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Do you think he survived that cave in?”
“Probably. We did.”
“Well that’s just fucking great.” Gideon says.
“Yeah, great.” Draven says wryly.
Chapter 22
Grace awoke with a pounding headache.
“Holy shit.” She whispered.
“Grace?”
She knew that voice, she just couldn’t figure out who it was.
“Grace?”
“What?” She snapped.
She heard a chuckle.
“I think she’s going to be ok.”
She opened one eye to see two men staring down at her, one on each side of the bed.
“Do you two get off on watching people sleep?”
Gideon bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead. Draven growled.
Grace looked at both of them.
“Sorry, wolf.” Draven said through a smile.
“You two are ridiculous.” Grace told them.
“Hey, we just saved your life. We deserve better.”
Grace waved Gideon off.
“What happened?” She asks them.
“What do you remember?” Draven asked.
“Up to the point when that bastard bit me.”
“We got there right before he killed you. Your wolf man over there knocked the vampire off you and I jumped him. Gideon watched over you while Neal and I fought.”
Draven looked over to see Gideon grinning like a Cheshire cat.
He rolled his eyes.
“Anyway, we fought, but I wasn’t able to kill him because the building started falling down.”
“Falling down?” Grace asks.
“That may have been due to me using the vampire as a wrecking ball.” Draven said.
“I see. Francine?”
Draven shook his head no
.
“Tanner?”
Another shake no.
“I killed him. He wouldn’t answer my questions so I took his silence as guilt and killed his ass.” Gideon tells her.
“Yeah. He was a part of it. So was Francine. From what Nathaniel, I mean, Neal, said, Tanner worked for the coven in Tennessee. Francine is the one who helped him get this all set up. I’m not sure why Tanner wanted me, but he had been dragging me to the stairs when Neal saw him. Neal hit him and grabbed me. That’s when he bit me.”
“My guess is he wanted to offer you as recompense for the big damn mess they had made of everything. By offering you to the strigoi, he hoped to redeem himself. They would have killed him anyway. They can’t leave loose ends like that.” Draven tells her.
“Who was the idiot that brought you here?” Gideon asks Grace.
“Steve Jones. A co-worker. He was working for Neal.”
“Well, he’s dead now.” Draven says.
Grace’s eyes widen.
“Yeah. Your light one here sucked the life out of him.” Gideon tells her.
“Really? Ever heard of being a little less dramatic?” Draven asks him.
Gideon shrugs.
“Thank you, guys. Both of you. Had it not been for you, I would have died. Or worse, I’d be a vampire now.” Grace says.
“Not a problem beautiful.” Gideon tells her.
“When can I go home?”
“The doctor said in a few days. You lost quite a bit of blood. He wants you to be back on your feet before he releases you.” Draven tells her.
“At least we know who killed Emily now. I just can’t believe it never crossed my mind that my brother was or could have been involved in any of this.”
“How could you have known? He disappeared, without a trace. There is no way for you to have known Grace.” Gideon says.
“He isn’t dead. Do you think he’ll stick around and come back for me?” Grace asks.
“Well, you have us to protect you.” Draven says.
“I don’t need protection you ass. I need a partner, and I never thought I’d hear myself say those words.” Grace says through a grin.
“I’m your partner woman. Deal with it.”
“What the hell am I? A sidekick?” Gideon asks.