by Folsom, Tina
“They wanted to get high on blood. On special blood that they were addicted to. They’d been feeding at a blood brothel in Hunter’s Point, the very place that Ursula led you to, and that you found empty. When they couldn’t get any more blood from the girls who were being held at the brothel, because they didn’t know where it had been relocated, they started attacking Asian girls.”
Oliver squeezed his eyes shut. He realized what the rogues had been trying to do: find Asian women who had the same kind of blood as Ursula.
“But when it turned out that the women they encountered in the nightclub didn’t have blood that got them high, they went berserk! I don’t want the same to happen to you.”
Oliver met Samson’s intense gaze. “Why would that happen to me?”
“Oliver, Ursula has special blood. It will get you high, and you’ll become addicted to it. We all know how vulnerable you are. And I know you better than most. You can’t be allowed to be near her. One bite, and your fate might already be sealed.”
“No! You’re wrong. I won’t bite her.”
“Please, Oliver,” Samson implored him, his voice more soothing now. “I’ve been told how you look at her. It’s not a secret that you want to sleep with her, if you haven’t already done so. You know what that means. You’ll want to bite her as part of making love to her. And then, you won’t be able to stop. We can’t risk that, because we don’t want to lose you.”
Oliver shook his head, furious. “I’m not like that! I didn’t bite her the first time. I promised myself not to, because I couldn’t go down that road again! I knew I had to be strong. And I was. I am!”
Samson narrowed his eyes, his expression changing. “You knew? You knew all along what her blood does and you didn’t tell anybody?”
Oliver suppressed a curse. Crap! He’d inadvertently blurted out too much.
“Why didn’t you come to me? You should have told me!” Samson thundered.
“I promised her not to tell anybody.”
“She entrusted you with her secret?”
Oliver nodded. “She’s scared of all of you. She told only me so I would help her, but she’s afraid that if you all knew, you’d just imprison her for her blood, just like the other vampires did.” He ran his hand through his hair.
“But you know we would never do that!”
“I know that! But she doesn’t! Do you know what she’s been through? What those animals did to her for three years?” He clenched his fists. “I’m going to kill them for it!”
“You’re not going to do anything right now! From now on you’ll follow orders.”
“If I’d followed Zane’s stupid order, Ursula would be back in Washington and we wouldn’t be any further. Instead—”
Samson held up his hand, stopping him. “Granted, in hindsight Zane’s order was wrong, but given the information he had then, it was the only logical solution.” He leaned over the desk. “I’m not upset that Ursula is still here. In fact, I think she might turn out to be useful in trying to find the nest of those vampires. But what does piss me off is that you didn’t have enough trust in me to come and tell me what’s going on. And that you continued to expose yourself to the temptation of her blood. It’s irresponsible. You of all people should know that an alcoholic can’t be in charge of a liquor store.”
Oliver felt his blood boil. “It’s not like that! I can handle it.”
“For how long? Until you overestimate how long you can go without blood? Until your hunger for it gets too strong? Until you can’t think straight anymore and can only think of sinking your fangs into her neck?”
Oliver felt his gums itch at the very thought of drinking from Ursula, while she was panting beneath him. “She needs me.”
“She’s a danger to you. Have you slept with her?”
Oliver avoided Samson’s gaze. “That’s none of your business!”
“So you have,” Samson concluded. “And you’ll do it again, and what if your control snaps next time? What if you feed from her? You have no idea what her blood will do to you. Zane and the others saw it at the club. Those vampires were crazy. Violent. Uncontrollable. We can’t allow that to happen to you. I’m sorry.”
An icy shiver crept up his spine. Narrowing his eyes, Oliver glared at his boss. “What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying. You can’t be allowed near her. She’s off limits for you.”
“You can’t do that!”
Samson gave him a serious look. “Please try to see my side. I didn’t rescue you from a life as a drug addict and criminal to let you slide down into the same kind of cesspit I found you in. You have a promising life ahead of you. Wasn’t that what you always wanted? Be one of us? Become a great bodyguard? Have exciting assignments?” Samson shook his head. “You would be throwing all this away if you bit her and became an addict again. As a vampire, your desires and needs are much stronger. You won’t be able to shake the addiction this time. You won’t be strong enough. That’s why I can’t allow you to see her again.”
Oliver thrust his chin up, ready for a counterattack. “What if somebody had told you the same thing about Delilah?”
Samson pounded his fist on the desk. “That’s uncalled for and you know it! You can hardly compare Delilah with a girl you met two nights ago!”
Oliver jumped up. He knew he was treading on thin ice, but he had nothing to lose. “If I recall correctly, you didn’t know Delilah much longer than I’ve known Ursula before you went all possessive on her!”
Slowly, like a stalking tiger, Samson rose from behind his desk. “I advise you to be very careful about what you say. Another word of insubordination, and I will strip you of your position within Scanguards, and you’ll be back to chauffeuring people around.”
Fuming, Oliver went nose to nose with Samson. “Go ahead! But you can’t keep me from Ursula!”
“I already have. By the time you get home, she’ll be gone.”
Oliver jolted backwards. Samson had tricked him. He’d asked him to his home so the others could grab Ursula behind his back. “Fuck you!”
“You’ll thank me for it later.”
Oliver glared at him, then turned on his heels and ran out of the house, ignoring Delilah and the baby playing in the front room.
He had to make it back to stop them from taking Ursula.
26
Ursula heard the doorbell as she finished dressing after a quick shower. She hadn’t wanted to linger in the bathtub, feeling uneasy because she was alone in the house with Quinn, Rose, and Blake. While she wasn’t worried about Blake or Rose, Quinn barging into the room had rattled her. He’d looked angry, and for whatever reason, she didn’t think it was because he’d found them in bed together. From everything she knew about vampires, she didn’t think that they had such high moral standards and cared who slept with whom.
Besides, Oliver and she hadn’t even had sex this time. He’d simply held her in his sleep. Just thinking about it made her feel all warm and safe. Safe in the arms of a vampire. Only three days ago she would have laughed hysterically at this notion.
A sound in the corridor outside her room made her snap her heard toward it and relinquish her thoughts. A knock at the door came a second later.
“Ursula? Are you dressed?” Quinn asked.
“Yes.”
The door swung open and Quinn entered. Behind him, Zane stepped into the room. The sight of the bald vampire twisted her stomach into knots. What did Zane want here?
“Zane has come to bring you to a safe place.”
Ursula almost choked on her saliva. Instinctively, she backed away, hitting her legs against the bed frame. “W-what?” she stuttered. She was safe here, with Oliver.
Quinn looked as if he was sorry for her, when he continued, “We have to move you someplace else. You can’t stay here.”
She shook her head. “Why? I don’t understand. Is it because you found Oliver in my bed? I’m sorry, but it’s not what you think. We didn’t—”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. And it’s not about that.” He tossed a look at Zane.
“What is it? Please!”
Zane took a step toward her. “You should have told us about your special blood from the beginning. It would have saved us a lot of time.”
Her heart stopped beating as shock coursed through her. It hit her all at once: not only did Zane know that Oliver hadn’t brought her to the airport and put her on a plane to Washington, he also knew about her blood. He knew her secret!
Disappointment and fear collided inside her, welling up, driving tears into her eyes. She tried to hold them back.
“No!” she choked out.
How could Oliver have done this to her? How could he have broken his promise to keep her secret safe? To keep her safe? She had trusted him. She had believed that he was different, that he was good and true. That he cared about her. How stupid of her to think that.
No vampire could be trusted, no matter how sweet he appeared, how caring he seemed.
Oliver had betrayed her.
“I hate Oliver! And I hate you all!” she cried out.
Zane shrugged. “Yeah, well, I don’t give a damn. You lied to us! Is that a way to treat people who are helping you? You were wasting our time! If you had told us right away what we were dealing with, we wouldn’t have lost time.”
Lost time? She knew what that meant. “So you want my blood for yourselves, is that it?”
Zane gave her a disgusted look. “Dream on, kiddo! I don’t want your blood: I’m blood-bonded. I only drink my mate’s blood. I wouldn’t touch yours if my life depended on it. Don’t you get it?”
She stared at him, not understanding. A blood-bonded vampire only drank his mate’s blood? He didn’t attack others for it? “Then you’ll just hire me out like the other vampires did. Same difference!”
Zane exchanged a look with Quinn. “I hadn’t thought her dim-witted, but hey, even I can be wrong sometimes.”
“I’m not dim-witted!” she screamed, fisting her hands at her hips.
“Then get this into your thick skull: nobody at Scanguards wants to drink blood that acts like a drug! We don’t want any addicts in our midst. We have a job to do and we can’t do it if we’re all drugged out and high on something. We need to have clear heads.”
She listened to his words, but had a hard time believing him. Why would Scanguards pass up something as valuable as her blood when they could make lots of money with it? No, they were probably just pacifying her now until they had figured out what to do with her. She couldn’t trust them. She’d made that mistake once, trusting Oliver, and he had betrayed her.
Her heart clenched at the thought of him. Why had he done it?
She dropped her head. “What are you going to do with me?”
“You’ll be brought to a safe house.”
“For how long?”
“For however long it takes to find the other girls and destroy the other vampires,” Zane replied.
A sob tore from her chest. And once they had the other girls, they could start the operation themselves. Was that what they were planning? Or were they truly going to rescue her and the other women? If only she could trust them, but that particular sentiment eluded her. She’d given all her trust to Oliver, and he’d misused it by telling his colleagues about her secret.
Zane took a step closer. “And you might come in handy to flush out your captors.”
Quinn raised an eyebrow. “You want to use her as bait?”
“We might have to. We’ll discuss it later.” He motioned to Ursula. “Now, let’s go.”
She walked to the door, passing Zane and Quinn, keeping her head high, not wanting to show the pain inside her.
“Is there anything you want me to tell Oliver from you?” Quinn asked.
The softness in his voice almost made her want to burst into tears, but she clenched her jaw instead and stared straight ahead into the hallway. “You can tell him to go to hell.”
She didn’t attempt to escape when Zane led her to his Hummer and opened the passenger door for her. She knew it would be wasted energy. He was infinitely faster than her, and by the looks of it mean enough to inflict pain should she not comply with his wishes. She wasn’t in the mood for physical pain right now – the emotional pain she felt was hard enough to cope with.
And there she’d thought she was falling in love with Oliver. Oh God, how stupid! And all the while he’d been deceiving her as to his intentions. At the first opportunity, he’d ratted her out to his colleagues. How could she have been so wrong about him?
“I need some more information from you. How many guards were on the premises?” Zane asked as he set the car in motion.
“There were always four of them guarding the top floor where we all lived and where they fed from us. But there were more of them.”
“How many more?” Zane insisted.
“At least seven or eight others. They rotated in and out.”
“And how many girls besides you?”
She hesitated. “Why do you want to know that?”
He tossed her a sideways glance. “Because I need to know what we’re dealing with.”
Unease crept up her spine. How would he use this information? To plan what to do with the girls? Where to set up shop once Scanguards had “freed” them?
“I asked you a question.”
“I don’t know how many.”
He clenched his teeth. “Talk, or I’ll make you talk.”
She had no doubt that he would, and she also knew that she had no strength left to fight him. “I can’t be sure, a dozen, but there’s one girl I hadn’t seen in a while. I can’t be sure that she’s still alive. And two new ones arrived recently. But I think it’s twelve.”
“All Chinese?”
Ursula nodded.
“Good.”
Then Zane fell silent. Clearly he wasn’t the type to make small talk. And luckily she wasn’t in the mood for it either.
During the rest of the short drive, she stared out the window. When Zane pulled the Hummer to a stop only a few minutes after they’d left Quinn’s house, she took in her surroundings. They were parked in front of a large corner building. It had four floors from what she could tell, and it looked like it was built around the turn of the century, or maybe a few years after it.
Zane motioned her to exit the car. Ursula closed the car door behind her, then looked at the large entrance door. Next to it, a brass sign was affixed to the wall. When she reached the door with Zane by her side, she read it. Executive Services, it said. Zane rang the door bell while she wondered what kind of business was located behind those elegant doors.
The intercom crackled. “Yes?”
“Zane for Vera.”
The buzzer sounded, and Zane pressed against the door, holding it open for her. Hesitantly, Ursula stepped inside. An elegant and opulent foyer leading up to a majestic staircase greeted her. To her left there was a lounge of sorts from which soft music and voices drifted to her. Along the right side, she noticed several doors.
Ursula followed Zane as he walked closer to the large staircase that dominated the far end of the foyer, her eyes still scanning her surroundings. As she walked past the lounge, she slowed her steps and focused her eyes. Women in revealing dresses sidled up to men who sat on comfortable chairs and sofas. She honed in on one couple. As the man drank from his glass, the beautiful black woman next to him draped her leg over his thighs, rubbing his crotch.
Ursula’s gaze whipped to the people who sat on another sofa not far from them. A similar picture presented itself. The woman was opening the man’s shirt, slipping her hand inside, while he, in full view of everybody, pushed the spaghetti strap of her dress off one shoulder and palmed her suddenly exposed breast.
Ursula turned to Zane and glared at him. “Ohhh! You brought me to a brothel! How could you?”
Not even from Zane would she have expected such cruelty, but apparently her skill at assessing peop
le sucked. Zane was that cruel to bring her to the same kind of place she’d only just escaped from. That here, the merchandise was sex rather than blood didn’t matter. It was still the same thing.
Zane shrugged as if he didn’t even understand her objection. “It’s safe. And it’s run by an ally. But what’s most important, nobody will suspect you here.”
At the sound of footsteps coming from the stairs, Ursula turned her head. A gorgeous Chinese woman in an elegant business suit glided down the staircase, her walk as graceful as that of a princess. Her black hair was piled high on her head, and her face was enhanced with subtle make-up, emphasizing her expressive eyes. She looked no older than thirty.
“Zane,” she greeted the vampire in a husky voice.
Zane simply nodded, then pointed to Ursula. “Vera, thank you for agreeing to this. This is Ursula.”
Vera let her eyes run over Ursula, giving her a thorough inspection. “So you’re the special one. I’m Vera. I run this place.”
She stretched out her hand, and Ursula felt compelled to shake it. Despite the polite gesture she couldn’t suppress her next comment. “So you’re my new jailor.”
“Ouch!” she replied dramatically, pressing a hand to her chest, before glancing at Zane. “What have you done to her that she has such a bad opinion of us?”
Zane grunted. “Nothing.”
“I see, so you were your usual pleasant self.”
When Zane glared back at her, Ursula almost wanted to smile. It appeared that Vera wasn’t afraid of him. She had to be a vampire herself. No human would dare piss off Zane, nor would many vampires.
“As Samson requested: keep her here, don’t let her out of your sight, and don’t give her any access to a phone or any other means of communication. She’s not to have any contact with anybody from Scanguards, particularly not with Oliver.”
Vera raised her lids. “Oh? What’s the poor guy done now?”
Ursula huffed at that. Poor guy? “Jerk!” she let out under her breath. First he’d seduced her and then he’d betrayed her.
“Ah, I see. Well, leave it to me. I’ll take good care of her.”
Without another word, Zane turned on his heels and left. When the entrance door fell shut, Vera put her hand on Ursula’s arm and motioned her up the stairs.