Tiffany strode across the room to stand straight in front of him. The top of her head barely reached his pecs, but she glared at him as if she were seven foot two. She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Look, buddy, I’ve handled myself perfectly well for twenty-two years without any help from you, so I don’t care who you are, I’m not taking orders from you unless I damn well choose.” She jabbed at him with her finger again. “I’m a vampire hunter, not some tutu-wearing princess who needs to be rescued.”
Pushing past him, she stomped off toward the dance floor.
Just as stubborn as her older brother. Mark had always refused help when he’d needed it most.
Damon followed her. His eyes locked on to her figure as she nudged her way through the sweat-covered bodies on the dance floor. The pulsing red lights cast shadows on her hair, tinting it gorgeous shades of red and purple. Even from behind she was gorgeous. He pushed through the crowd until he reached her.
Before she knew he was there, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her against his body. Using his leather jacket as a cover, he placed the Desert Eagle against her spine, leaned down and growled into her ear, “Walk toward the back door quietly and we won’t have a problem.”
“This is how you try to protect me?” she seethed.
Damon nudged her with his gun, and she walked forward. He battled the urge to suck on the delicate skin of her earlobe, to kiss his way down the length of her neck and collarbone. The smell of her skin was intoxicating. “I’d rather take you to the E.R. for a bullet wound than scrape your insides off the pavement because some demented vampire attacked you. At least with the gun you’d have a chance of survival.”
He forced her to march ahead of them until they reached the back of the club. He pushed open the door and corralled her into the dimly lit street alley. A burst of cold air hit his face, giving him the wake-up call he needed.
“Are you going to take the gun off me now?”
Without a word, Damon patted down the sides of her jacket and confiscated her Smith & Wesson. His hand slid over the stake inside her coat pocket.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? I thought you wanted to protect me.” The pitch of her voice dropped as her impatience rose.
He tucked the gun into his inside coat pocket. “I’ll let you keep the stake for protection, but I can’t have you wielding a gun at me.” He patted down her jacket again. “Any other weapons I should know about, or can I trust you?”
She didn’t answer. Her jaw clenched, and he could tell from her body language that she was seriously ticked off. Her expression made it very clear that she didn’t like being stripped of her weapons.
Damon lowered his gun.
She spun to face him. “You know—”
Before she could finish speaking he slung her over his shoulder as if she weighed no more than a feather from a very pissed-off eagle and jogged toward his gunmetal colored BMW Z4.
She kicked her feet and slammed her fists into his back, but he barely noticed. She yelled profanities at him the entire way to the car, but he didn’t care. He just needed to get her out of there. With the way Caius had been fixated on her, it wouldn’t be long before he questioned where she was, and he wasn’t going to be too happy about his dead bodyguard, either.
When they reached the Z4, Damon quickly hit the unlock button on his remote, wrenched open the door and dropped Tiffany, still kicking and screaming, into the passenger seat. He slammed the door. She shoved herself against it and beat against the window as he slid into the driver’s seat. Thank God for automatic locks and bulletproof glass. Standard issue from headquarters.
Within seconds he was shifting into Drive and stomping on the pedal. They zipped out of the alley at sixty miles per hour.
“What’s wrong with you?” Tiffany yelled. “Stripping me of my weapon and then throwing me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes? What are you? A caveman?”
He tried to tune her out, but it was no use. Damn him, he’d just sucked face with Mark’s little sister. But if he admitted it to himself, how many times had his thoughts wandered in that direction as he’d read Tiffany’s letters? Not while she’d been a teenager, but later, once she entered college, when the handful of years separating them hadn’t been as big a deal. Yeah, he’d wondered, all right.
“Hello!” She banged her fist on the dashboard. “This is the twenty-first century. This is called abduction, and in case you didn’t know, it’s illegal in every state!”
Damon growled, so low and throaty he surprised even himself. “Don’t.”
The tone of that one word shut her up.
He let out another grumble. “I’m trying to keep you safe, whether you like it or not. Sit back and put your seat belt on.”
Slowly she relaxed into her seat and clipped the seat belt into place. Damon sped toward the Golisano Hospital at full speed. The city lights and few people roaming the streets blurred as they sped by. There was no way of knowing the next best move without seeing the victim. Crime scene photos never did the actual carnage justice, and now that he was on the scene he needed to see the details firsthand.
After several minutes of silence, Tiffany finally broke. “Why are you doing this? Why do you care about me?” She fixed him with a hard stare. “Why do you care if I die?”
Damon bit his tongue and concentrated on keeping his expression flat, distant. He couldn’t let her know who he was. If he did, she would hate him and never trust him to keep her safe. But he couldn’t avoid her questions for long.
“It’s my job,” he said.
She shook her head, clearly not buying that for a single minute. “What about the other humans in there? Isn’t it your job to keep them safe, too?”
He gritted his teeth. She’d hit him right where it hurt, but he would never let her know that. “I can’t save everyone.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “So you save the one person in the entire building who needs the least amount of saving?” He didn’t respond. She huffed. “That makes total sense.”
He shot her an icy stare. “That sort of attitude is exactly why you need saving. You’re not invincible.”
She scoffed. “Neither are you.” She yanked up the sleeve of his leather coat. “See, I jabbed you right...” Her voice trailed off as she ran her fingers over his skin.
Electricity shot through his limbs. One small caress and she could bring him to his knees. He clenched his teeth. Everything in him fought against that knowledge. He couldn’t grant her power over him.
She stared at his forearm. The wounds had already begun to heal. The only remaining signs were several pink crescent-shaped scars, which at this rate would soon disappear.
Her eyes widened. “What are you?”
* * *
TIFFANY STARED AT Damon’s arm. Her fingernails had dug deep into his skin not even half an hour earlier, and already the healed wounds were nothing but faint pink lines and some residual dried blood. She ran her fingers over the skin once more. Desire pulsed through her every time her skin connected with his. Her nipples hardened into taut peaks as she brushed the muscles of his forearms. She wanted to touch him all over. Run her hands up his thick biceps and onto his chest, down to places where she’d never touched a man before. The thought of their kiss lingered in her mind. She didn’t care that he’d only done it out of necessity. Her lips burned with the need to touch his again.
She drew in a sharp breath. She needed to calm herself. She barely knew this man. How could she want him, need him, so desperately? “What are you?” she repeated.
He didn’t look at her, just continued to stare at the road. “A vampire slayer, a hunter.”
“My brother, Mark, was a vampire slayer before he died.” She held back a small smile. “He’s the one who taught me how to kill vampires.”
Damon’s whole body stiffened like a rigid board. His hands squeezed the steering wheel tighter. The ice behind his eyes blazed a captivating blue.
Tiffany wished those eyes were hovering over her as his muscled body slammed into hers. She cleared her throat and blinked several times. She needed to get the image of him naked out of her head, no matter how delicious she was sure he would be. She knew nothing about him. She snapped her wits back into place.
“Look, I get that most hunters have this overwhelming sense of duty to protect the innocent. My brother was the same way, always spouting at me about what to do if a vampire ever attacked me and feeding me horror stories so I wouldn’t stay out too late at night. But I don’t need protecting. I may be a woman, but you seem to forget that I hunt vampires, too.”
Damon stared straight ahead at the road, his face unmoving and cold. “Not in my sanctioned territory, you don’t.”
Hot as he might be, the man had some serious control issues, and she would only take so much bossing around. “And who gave you the authority to claim this territory?”
He didn’t respond.
Realization washed over Tiffany like a tidal wave. She stopped her jaw from falling open. She deserved a good whap upside the head. How could she be such a moron? The thought crossed her mind briefly before, but it had seemed so unlikely.
“You’re a member of the Execution Underground,” she said. “Just like my brother.”
And B...
His hands tightened on the wheel. She didn’t need his confirmation to know she was right.
“You probably knew him.”
While she didn’t know many specifics about the clandestine organization, she did know that they trained men to be elite hunters of the supernatural and dispatched them across the globe to protect humanity. The Execution Underground had recruited her brother once they’d gotten wind of their parents’ brutal deaths. During the attack, he’d managed to save her from the monster, though he was totally untrained. The Execution Underground had been interested in him from that point on. They’d whisked him away to a private facility to train, while she’d stayed with their aunt Cecelia.
Whenever Mark had visited, he’d never shared much about the Execution Underground with her. She’d always gotten the impression that she wasn’t meant to know, and at the time she didn’t have the courage to ask.
To this day, she still didn’t know which vampire led the attack that killed her family, but she was determined to find out. Mark worked every day after their deaths to find their killer and to destroy the monsters that had stolen their parents’ lives, but Caius had taken his life before he could avenge their family. Now she wouldn’t rest until both Caius and the murderous vampire who destroyed their parents exploded like the overstuffed blood bags they were. She would never forget the moment when she discovered who Caius was. All the Execution Underground disclosed to her was the location of the nest Mark had raided. Their letter said he died “valiantly fighting the leaders of the nest.” It didn’t take much snooping around the vamp world to find out who that leader had been. Once she’d put two and two together, hunting Caius had consumed almost all her waking thoughts.
Without a word, Damon pulled the car to a stop outside Golisano Hospital.
She raised a brow. “What are we doing here?”
He turned to face her. “Would you cooperate more if I said I’m working a case and you could help me as long as you listen to my instructions?”
“I’d be more inclined than when you’re ordering me around for no reason.”
He fixed her with a hard stare before he exited the car. Once he pressed the unlock button, she scrambled after him, eager for more information. She’d never been part of an official case before. She’d only worked to avenge her family’s deaths, and always alone. Sure, she’d killed other vamps in the process, helping one innocent soul or another, but she had never worked a case.
Apparently there was a first time for everything.
CHAPTER 4
DEAD WAS AN awful smell to get used to. The scent of formaldehyde hit Damon’s nose as he and Tiffany walked into the morgue. After a few calls to the E.U. in order to clear things with security, they were able to enter the room with ease. The reflective silver surfaces and sharp sterilized instruments laid out on tray tables made the room as cold as the chilled air around them. She coughed and covered her face with her sleeve. Though Damon was new to working on his own, he’d shadowed some of the world’s most elite vampire slayers for the past several years. The smell of dead bodies no longer churned his stomach.
But the thought of all the children in the silver drawers lining the walls did.
There was nothing worse than working on a case involving children. The fact that Jane Doe was on the older side of childhood didn’t make it any easier. So much for sweet sixteen.
He walked to the small coroner’s desk in the corner and riffled through the files. There was bound to be more than one Jane Doe in the morgue, but only one with the type of extensive damage they were looking for.
Tiffany cleared her throat, still wiping desperately at her nose as if she were trying to erase the smell. “Do you know who we’re looking for?”
He continued searching through the stacks of papers without answering. She had to be somewhere near the top. He noticed a freshly printed page sticking out of a manila folder. He pulled at the edge. The header of the report identified Jane Doe by her extensive mutilation. This was not going to be pleasant.
“Damon,” she said again.
He turned toward her with the paper in hand. “Yeah, I know.”
Reading over the IDs, he matched the number on the report to the corresponding label on a drawer. He placed his hand on the cold metal handle as Tiffany walked to his side.
He nodded toward the drawer. “Don’t watch this.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. I don’t have a weak stomach.”
“There are some things nobody should have to see.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and planted her feet firmly.
He let out a long sigh. “Suit yourself.” He pulled open the drawer and fought not to gag.
Immediately Tiffany ran to the small wastebasket near the coroner’s desk and hurled. Damon didn’t blame her one bit. He stared down at the unidentifiable body as anger built inside him. Even if they’d found an ID, it would have been next to impossible to identify this girl, and no parent deserved to see their child like this. A large, gaping hole took the place of her face. The lips, eyes and mouth were gone, like some gruesome figure in a haunted house or a B horror film.
As if the facial mutilation wasn’t enough, several sets of fang-size holes marred her neck and collarbone. From the heavy purpled bruising, they were evidence of the M.O.D.—method of death: exsanguinations. Damon had stopped hoping for the existence of a higher power long ago, but, damn, he prayed the mutilation had occurred after she’d already been drained. The thought of her suffering from the injuries to her face as a vampire slowly bled her out was more than even he could handle. Every inch of his being longed to kill the sick bastard who’d done this. The worthless piece of shit deserved to die a slow, painful and torturous death. And he intended to make sure that happened.
He carefully examined the holes on her neck. There was no mistaking it. Her wounds were definitely fang marks, the exact shape and width of the average vampire’s canine teeth. Walking to the coroner’s cabinet, he searched until he found three cotton swabs and the containers used for sending away samples for DNA analysis. He traced one around the edge of her fang bites, another near the edges of her facial wounds and the third over a small speck of dried blood on her cheek. He capped all three samples and glanced down at the body.
A feeling of disgust hit him. Desecrating the poor girl’s corpse was the last thing he wanted to do at that moment, but he could
n’t risk her turning into a vampire within one month’s time. He needed to take preemptive measures to ensure she wouldn’t turn, the measures he should have taken with Mark. Pulling his stake from inside his coat, he placed it over her heart. He closed his eyes, inhaled a deep breath and thrust the stake downward.
He opened his eyes again. Dry bloodless flesh, but otherwise there was no reaction. He let out a long sigh of relief. It was bad enough she’d been murdered by a vampire, but thank God she hadn’t turned in the process. Bile rose in his throat as he thought of Mark being one of those bloodsuckers. Of Mark killing humans to fuel his own immortality. Because once turned, there was no fighting the change, and for the first year a vampire’s blood thirst raged so hard that all the self-control in the world wouldn’t aid him.
Removing the stake from her heart, he pulled his cleaning rag from his pocket, wiped off the lacquered wood and placed the stake inside his jacket again, then closed the drawer, sealing the corpse inside, and walked to Tiffany’s side.
Tiffany lifted her head from the trash bin. Shoving her hair away from her face, she inclined her head toward the drawer. “Is it closed now?”
Damon nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
She shot out of the morgue and toward the car as if someone had lit a fire under her ass. Judging by her pale white face, she was more than a little spooked. She didn’t speak again until she slid into the passenger seat.
“I thought you had a strong stomach,” he said as he slid behind the wheel.
She shook her head. “I thought so, too.”
Damon wasn’t surprised. Regular people thought being immune to motion sickness constituted a strong stomach. Dealing with the dead was different. She would need to toughen up for med school, if that was still her goal. She’d been prepping for her studies when they’d last communicated, several months ago. He opened his mouth to comment, but caught himself.
Do not go there, Damon.
Shadow Hunter (The Execution Underground) Page 4