He rose from his crouched position, ran his fingers through his dripping hair to comb it off his forehead, and embraced the sudden rush of adrenaline that hit his system.
If he died, Phoebe would die. That wasn’t going to happen.
He focused on Trevor and ignored the rest of his minions when he stepped out of the forest and sauntered toward them. Perhaps because he was wearing a wet turtleneck, slacks, and windbreaker, no one seemed to notice him.
Trevor smirked when he stopped in front of him.
“Trevor Ricci?” Hunter asked, though he knew the answer already.
“Yeah.”
Hunter removed his ID from his inner jacket pocket and flipped it open. “Hunter Knox. I represent the National Vampire Security Council. You’re wanted for questioning in the death of Angelina Gomez in Texas and Andre Cassard in Louisiana, as well as the poisoning of Armanno Ricci and several members of his household, the death of your human servant, Jeb, and the poisoning of your wife, Phoebe Stewart.”
“You don’t say. Are you the only one they sent?” He smirked again.
“Yes. I’m the only one they could spare at the moment. I need you to come with me.”
Trevor threw his head back and laughed. “I’m a little busy right now. So, no, I don’t think I will.” His features went taut with aggression while he glanced past Hunter to the vampires poised to attack. Hunter felt them closing in. “Kill—”
With lightning speed, Hunter pulled the gun at the small of his back and emptied the clip into Trevor’s chest. Trevor stumbled back and fell, his expression stunned.
Hunter leaped forward, thrust his hand into the other vampire’s chest, and ripped out his heart.
Time stood still for one second, then two. More than half the vampires standing in the front yard crumpled and died with the suddenness of their sire. The others looked around, and seeing the numbers of their dead comrades, broke and ran.
The front door to the house burst open, and the Hamilton brothers roared out in pursuit. Sounds of fighting came from the back. A roar and several screams split the air.
In the distance, the whomp-whomp-whomp of a helicopter flying close by echoed in the valley.
Hunter rushed into the house, yelling for Zaira.
She appeared beside him instantly. “I’m here. Where is she?”
“A hunters’ blind back in the forest to the north. Do you have the antidote?”
Zaria patted her sweater pocket.
Hunter picked her up and ran full out. She left him standing at the base of the tree as she zapped herself up into the blind. He climbed the wooden strips slowly, afraid of what he might find.
Even if it worked, the sun was coming, and they wouldn’t know whether the antidote worked for hours, because Phoebe always died at the first hint of sunrise.
Zaira was chanting a spell when he entered the blind. Her eyes were closed, her features intent. After several moments, she stopped. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “The spell is to push the antidote through her system more quickly. I’m sorry I put the wards up too soon.”
Hunter knelt next to Phoebe and clasped her hand in both of his. “It was what Phoebe wanted. She didn’t want anyone hurt on her behalf. She knew there were hundreds against the nine of us, and the security forces were killed before they reach us.”
Phoebe’s hand was cold, but was it the chill of death or sleep? He searched for the small spark of power he’d felt before he left…and found nothing. He rested his forehead against his knee and averted his face while the pain ripped through him.
He brought her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips back and forth against her skin. All the possibilities they had lost rose up to torment him. The way she looked when she stepped into the tub before they made love. Her glow of complete contentment afterward.
A familiar head and shoulders popped through the hole in the floor. “Are you going to get the hell out of my way so I can do something about this, or are you going to continue to grieve?” Vlad snapped while he climbed the rest of the way into the blind, the hum of his power as powerful as a jet engine.
“Do you still have the hypodermic you used to inject her?”
Zaira, wide-eyed with fear, handed him the syringe.
He shoved back the sleeve of his turtleneck sweater, removed the cap, and jabbed the needle into his forearm, withdrawing an entire syringe of blood. He knelt beside Phoebe. “She’s truly dead, but since it just happened, there may yet be hope.” He injected the blood directly into a vein in her arm, went through the process four more times, then put the cap back on the syringe and stuck it in his pocket.
“I’ll take her to the house,” Zaira said, tears still wet on her cheeks.
Hunter nodded, unable to speak.
She and Phoebe were gone in the blink of an eye.
Hunter rose from his crouched position and turned to face his sire. “Is there truly hope?”
“Yes. But what she was when she died this time may not be what she is when she awakens.”
Shock held Hunter immobile for several moments. “What do you mean?”
“I am the oldest living vampire on earth, Hunter. When I changed you, you only sipped my blood. I’ve just injected Phoebe four times. When she awakens, there may be changes in what she can do and what she might be.”
“You mean she may no longer be the Phoebe we know?” And love.
“Possibly not.”
The words hit him like a sledgehammer, but then he shook his head determination, beating back his anxiety. As long as she was alive, they could deal with the rest of it together.
* * *
DAWN BROKE, AND as the sun rose, the dead caught fire and burned. Babe and his brothers called in help to ensure the small blazes didn’t set the whole mountainside alight. A drenching rain helped, but left behind ugly, blackened heaps of ash surrounding the house. Hunter wielded a shovel along with Babe and his brothers, while they labored together to scoop up the remains and bury them deep in the forest.
Every half hour he returned to Phoebe’s bedroom. Zaira sat next to the bed waiting for some sign of life, and promised to text him if there was any change.
Around noon a text came in. Hope surged, and he dropped the shovel and jerked his phone free. It was Vlad. Armanno Ricci had been given the antidote and was expected to live. He had been sentenced to five hundred years in solitary confinement. It was the only way to punish him without killing the many vampires he had created, and it meant he would lose his place in his clan for five hundred years.
Ricci deserved to die because of what he and his son did to Phoebe, for what they did to all the others, for all the lives they caused to be ended here, in this place.
The storm of rage and pain left him feeling hollow, leaving behind a hovering grief, waiting to consume him if Phoebe truly died.
By midday he had to take his rest. It had been years since he was still up so long after sunrise. He slipped into Phoebe’s room.
Zaira rose from her chair. “I was just going to text you. Look! I took the bandage off her throat, and her wounds are healed.”
In two strides he was beside the bed and to gently turn Phoebe’s head and study her neck. The puncture wounds had vanished without a trace, as had the horrible bruise and infection. Relief diminished some of his worry.
Pheobe wouldn’t rise until sunset or a little after. He just had to hold on to the hope she would be the same woman he fell in love with. “I’ll stay with her. Why don’t you go home for a while?” It might not be good to have anyone non-vampire here when Phoebe awoke. What if she had reverted to her newly turned vamp state? With Vlad’s blood, anything was possible.
Zaira searched his face, the skin below her eyes smudged with exhaustion.
“I’ll text you if anything happens,” he added.
She looked away. “I’m sorry, Hunter.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was Ricci and his bastard son’s. They’re responsible for everything.”
She n
odded, and in the next heartbeat she was gone.
Hunter took a shower and dressed in sleep pants and a T-shirt. Then he lay beside Phoebe and studied her face for several minutes. He covered her hand with his and reached out through the connection, seeking some sign her power was returning. When he discovered a tiny spark buried deep inside her, he concentrated on fanning it with his own power. It seemed to grow for a moment, then died back down.
She would fight her way back. He knew she would. It would just take time.
CHAPTER 14
PHOEBE WOKE AT the first hint of sunset. She lay quietly for several minutes, trying to orient herself. Her mind felt dull and slow, as though she’d been asleep for eons.
She turned over to find a male sleeping beside her wearing flannel sleep pants and a T-shirt. She studied him, deciding there was something familiar about him, but, no matter how she cudgeled her memory, she couldn’t figure out how she knew him, or who he was.
He had a very masculine, compelling face, though, all planes and angles, except for his mouth. It was exceptional. Just looking at it made her want to taste him. The quick rush of arousal caught her unaware, and she gasped. Why was she feeling like this when she had just laid eyes on him?
She slipped free of the bed and backed away from it, studying the room. It, too, seemed familiar, but it obviously hadn’t been lived in very long. It was too barren of personal things, and too clean. Was it a rented room? And why was she here with a strange male?
Careful not to wake the sleeping vampire, she wandered to the door. She turned the knob to open it, but it was locked. She studied the electronic panel next to the door with its buttons, but she couldn’t think which to push, or what order to key them in.
Why would she be locked in? Was it to keep her in, or others out?
The rustle of the sheets behind her triggered sudden anxiety and she jerked around to face the bed.
“How do you feel, Phoebe?”
His voice sounded familiar, too. Husky, deep, and dark like the male. His rich brown hair, medium length, lay in heavy layers against his head. His gray eyes studied her with worry and concern.
“I’m well. Who are you?”
He flinched, then stiffened, as though the question hurt him. “My name is Hunter. Hunter Knox.”
“Hunter.” She murmured his name, feeling the texture of it in her mouth. His face was so arresting, his gaze so intense, they triggered that rush of desire again, as though her body hungered for him while the momentous reason she responded to him flirted around the edges of her memory.
“Why are we here in this locked room?”
“This is your room, in your house. You’ve been ill. It’s locked, just as a precaution, because we’ve been under attack.”
He was lying. “I can’t be ill. I’m a vampire.”
“You were poisoned, Phoebe.”
The word poison sent a shard of fear through her, sharp as a stake. Her hand went to her throat. “But I’m better now?”
“Yes. We were able to give you the antidote, and my sire shared his blood with you. You were—near death. I believe it’s why you’re confused.”
Confused didn’t even begin to cover what she was thinking and feeling.
“Why are you with me here?”
She read pain on his face before he replied. “We have been together for a short while.”
So the feelings she was experiencing were real. Relief settled some of her panic.
He rose, moved to the door, punched in the code, and opened it. “You may want to dress. There are others in the house.”
She looked down at her nightshirt and bare feet.
With the door standing open, her anxiety eased.
A compulsion to touch him arrested her and she clenched her hand at her side to control it.
“Who else is here?”
“Your bodyguards, the Hamilton brothers, and the Bernards, Gabe, Marion, and Shirley.”
Her tension evaporated when she remembered who he was talking about. She ran her fingers through her hair. “I need you to tell me everything that’s happened.”
“What is the last thing you remember?”
She closed her eyes and strained to pinpoint the last event. “The wedding. Please tell me I didn’t marry that narcissistic, blood-sucking douchebag.”
“You did. He poisoned you at the wedding.”
She caught her breath as outrage stormed through her. “That asshole! I’ll kill him.”
“You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
The flat, ruthless expression on his face held her silent. Instead of frightening her, it gave her a tingling thrill.
Without thinking, she touched his arm. “I’m getting dressed. Then you can explain everything.”
By the time she finished her shower, the grogginess she awakened with had passed. As she wrapped a towel around her hair, her attention snagged on the tub. She caught a quick flash of Hunter, his skin gleaming with soap, the muscles beneath his skin lovingly traced by the water while she rinsed the foam away. Her heart thundered. The intimacy between them had given her more than pleasure.
She needed to hear all the details. She needed to know how Hunter felt about her. And she needed to know how he had changed her long-standing aversion to romance.
She dressed and brushed her teeth and hair, emerging from the bathroom to find him wearing dark slacks and a pullover knit shirt that delineated his broad shoulders and the musculature of his chest and stomach.
She understood why she was so drawn to him. It was the dangerous, bad-boy aura about him. His eyes…glowing blue as he leaned over her… The memory caught at her heart and made it hammer against her ribs. She placed a hand over it. It had not beat like that in decades.
“Do you want to feed?” he asked.
Maybe she should. Maybe it would help her remember. “Yes.”
He removed two packages of blood from the small refrigerator and handed her one. She sat down on the end of the bed. “This room seems familiar, and you seem familiar.”
The relief in his expression was hard to acknowledge. What if she never remembered what they had felt for each other? He would be hurt. She couldn’t allow him to be hurt.
He sat beside her while they finished the meal and talked about the house and her plans to live here. “I’m afraid your landscaping was destroyed during the confrontation with Trevor’s clan. The Bernards and I tried to clean up, but there are areas of burned grass and ash coating everything, and the smell is lingering.”
“Why can’t I remember any of this?”
“We were attacked, and Zaira warded the house to prevent them from being able to enter or destroy it. You and I had to take cover in a hunting blind north of here, so we didn’t witness much of the battle. After you and I repelled the initial attack, you became too weak to fight.”
She didn’t feel weak now. She felt she could lift the house if she needed to. She sucked down the last of the blood in the bag and tossed the empty plastic in a small trashcan, then beckoned Hunter to follow her.
On the way upstairs, she curled her fingers around his arm, her sense of familiarity with him increasing.
They entered the kitchen. As soon as they saw her, the Hamilton brothers, all big, broad, and wooly with their curly hair and beards, greeted her with a fist bump and a hug. The oldest asked, “How do you feel?”
“Good. Strong.”
“I can say this now it didn’t happen. We didn’t think you were going to make it, Phoebe. So glad you’re back.”
“Thank you.”
They left the brothers to finish their evening meal and went outside.
“I was really ill.” It was more a statement than a question.
Hunter cupped his hand over hers on his arm. “You were dying, Phoebe.”
She found that bit of information too unsettling to dwell on.
They settled on the porch steps under the soft light of the moon, and he explained everything…except when and how they
were intimate. She knew they had been. Her body responded to his nearness, to the sound of his voice, and the way he looked at her, with a rising need. She had never experienced anything quite like it.
She turned her attention on the surrounding yard to distract herself from her raging libido. It had been trampled, burned, and the plants and bushes she selected so painstakingly, destroyed. The signs of a tremendous battle were easy to read. Every time she drew in a breath, or when she spoke, she could taste the ashes of death and smell them.
She wished she could heal the earth as easily as she could burn it. She walked out into the yard and turned to face the house. The three-quarter moon looked as bright as a spotlight. She smelled bear. Were the Bernard brothers back from hunting? She scanned the nearby forest, but didn’t see or hear them.
Perhaps if she warmed the air it would blow the stench away. She stretched out a hand and let just a hint of power ease out. A breeze rustled the trees and whipped along the ground, kicking up the ash.
She wiggled her fingers, spinning the breeze, much as she did with her fire sometimes, until the breeze became a dust devil of sorts, but made of ashes. She guided it along the ground, urging it from one spot to another, while it picked up the remnants of the battle and carried them away, over the distant hills to stretch out like a cloud of smoke, dissipate, and disappear.
“Could you do that before?” Hunter asked.
She thought about it. “Not exactly, and not with as much control.”
“My sire warned me you might notice some differences in your powers.”
Like the steady beat of her heart? “Who is your sire?”
“His name is Vlad Tepes.”
“He can’t be. He’s been dead for six hundred years.”
Hunter chuckled. “That’s what you said the first time I told you.”
Why couldn’t she remember that? But an image invaded her mind of a vampire, tall, slim, with dark, intense eyes and a mustache. He stood in the kitchen with Hunter while she talked on her cell phone. His interest and his power… She’d been almost paralyzed with fear. She shivered just thinking about it. His blood ran through her body now? What would she owe him for such a sacrifice? Would he now be her sire? The thought sent her stomach tumbling.
Magic and Mayhem: Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Have Wand, Will Travel Book 2) Page 13