Her chest squeezed as the sensation of those vampires sitting on her, feeding from her, crashed over her once more. There was no rhyming, no David to help stabilize her; she was thrown back into those days of terror too quickly to stop panic from crushing her.
David took a step toward Mia when all the color drained from her face. She stopped breathing before she wheezed in a sharp breath and her hand flew to her chest. David took hold of her shoulders as he knelt before her.
Ensnared in some memory, she didn’t seem to see him as her eyes remained unfocused. He clasped hold of her chin and turned her head toward him. “Mia, what is it?”
Her shoulders heaved as she pressed closer to the heat he radiated. Despite the memories battering against her, his presence soothed some of her terror. She’d just found him, just found happiness and security again, and now she might lose it all. A vampire, maybe multiple vampires were out there, and they had come for her.
She took another deep breath of David’s woodsy scent, seeking to further calm the constriction in her chest as she fought to stay focused on the here and now, on him. She didn’t care what she had to do; she would kill any who dared to try to hurt him. She would not lose him.
She lowered herself to the floor before him and slid her arms around his neck, needing to hug him. “They’ve come to take me again.” David stiffened as she murmured these words to him. His arms locked around her waist. “I smell garbage. It’s how the vampires in the warehouse smelled.”
Lifting Mia up, he set her on the edge of the bed. “Stay here,” he whispered.
“Like hell.”
Mia scrambled up behind him and hurried to her coat when he walked back toward the door. From the inside pocket, she withdrew her stake. David grabbed his own coat and pulled two stakes from its inner pockets. He also pulled out his cell phone, typed a message into it, and slid it into his pocket.
Seizing the bag she’d packed, Mia unzipped it and dug around until she uncovered the small crossbow tucked within. It was barely bigger than her hand, but it was still lethal, and she intended to use it.
David glanced over at where Mia knelt by the bag, her eyes a vibrant red. Her jaw was set in determination; anger etched her delicate features. He moved away from the window to kneel beside her again. No matter how badly he’d like to keep her out of this, he knew it would be impossible. She would fight to the death before she allowed them to place her in chains again.
“Are you going to be able to do this?” he asked her.
Her lips skimmed back to reveal her fangs. “I’ll kill every one of those bastards if I have to.”
David wrapped his hand around the back of her head and drew her close to kiss her forehead. “We’ll let them make the first move. They most likely think we’re sleeping. Stay behind me as much as possible.”
He released her and rose to make his way back to stand between the window and the door. It would be impossible to keep her out of this, but he was determined to kill however many vamps were out there before they could get close to her.
Mia took up a position directly across from the door and aimed the crossbow at chest level prepared to take out the first bastard who tried to enter. This wasn’t their home, so there would be no invitation necessary for the vamps out there to come inside.
As the seconds ticked into endless minutes, her hand began to cramp and sweat trickled down her back to stick her shirt to her skin. She didn’t dare move a muscle as she waited, barely breathing. The vamps stalking them had to make their move before the sun rose. Vampires who killed humans for recreation, or on accident, became stronger from the kill, but they also became weaker as more restrictions were placed on them. They became increasingly vulnerable to sunlight, holy water, crucifixes, had difficulty crossing bodies of water, and with every kill, they had the increasing stench of garbage to purebred vampires.
These assholes wouldn’t be able to attack them during the day, unless they planned to follow them all the way back to Maine. Her heart sank as she realized it could be a long time, if ever, if the vampires didn’t attack them tonight.
She glanced at David as regret descended over her. He remained unmoving beside the door. The steady beat of his heart and his even breaths belied the lethal tension of his body. She’d just found a new family and home she loved with him. She refused to let it go.
No matter what it took, they’d kill these bastards or she’d die trying.
A noise outside brought her head back toward the door. She shifted her position as she steadied her grip on the crossbow. Before she had time to take another breath, the door of the room burst open. Splintered wood showered her from the broken frame. Mia ducked as what remained of the door soared over her head and crashed into the wall behind her with enough force to shatter the plaster and shake the building.
She almost fired the crossbow before she realized the first vamp had come in low. Jerking her hand down, she pulled the trigger. The tiny bolt whistled as it sped through the air and pierced the vampire in his forehead. He howled and flipped over onto his back. His feet kicked in the air as his hands clawed at the bolt. Another vamp appeared in the doorway, but before he could jump out of the way, David grabbed his jacket and jerked him inside.
David’s handsome face was etched with ruthlessness when he drove the stake through the vamp’s heart and yanked it back out. Mia caught a glimpse of the man with the beard that she’d seen earlier before he spun away from the door.
Realization that the bearded man was also a vampire dawned on her when his putrid stench hit her. A flash of memory rocked her on her feet. A picture of him heavier and laughing, blazed across her mind, but she still couldn’t quite recall who he was.
Mia shook her head to clear it of the image. She could piece it all together later; they had to fight. When she saw another vamp duck away from the door, she realized the vampires hadn’t been waiting to attack because they wanted to follow them somewhere. They’d been waiting for reinforcements.
David bent down and drove his stake through the heart of the vamp she’d shot, who was still kicking his feet on the floor. Yanking the bolt from the vamp’s forehead, David tossed it to Mia before rising and cautiously poking his head out the door. He ducked back in time to avoid a machete that swung out of the darkness at him. The machete came so close that it glanced over his ear, drawing blood that rolled down to seep into his shirt.
Rage burst hotly through Mia at the sight of David’s blood, and the knowledge that another had hurt him.
The arm holding the machete lifted up, but David lunged forward and seized the wrist before the vampire could pull back. He slammed the vamp’s wrist against the doorframe and snapped his arm around. Bone cracked and splintered before it tore through skin. The vampire howled and the machete fell from his ruined hand. The knife clattered as it hit the ground.
David kept hold of the vampire as he strained to hear anything else. Two heartbeats sounded from outside, making it appear that there was only one more attacker with the vampire David held. Mia crept closer to him and toward the other side of the door. She craned her neck in order to peer outside. The vamp David held jerked in his grasp, trying to break free.
Placing his foot against the wall, David yanked the vamp around the side of the doorframe, twisted his stake in his grasp, and drove it into the man’s chest. Startled brown eyes met his before the vamp collapsed next to the bodies of his brethren.
In the distance, a single set of footsteps fell heavily against the pavement as the last vamp fled. David poked his head cautiously out and peered up and down the roadway. In the distance, he saw a man fleeing toward a car parked by the office building.
“Stay here!” he barked at Mia, then plunged out the doorway after the vampire.
“David, wait!” Mia cried.
She didn’t stop to think about the possibility of more vampires out there before she raced down the pavement behind him. Despite her purebred status and speed, Mia couldn’t catch up to him as David’s ho
ned body and long legs steadily ate away the distance between him and the bearded man.
The vamp glanced over his shoulder and squeaked in fright as David bore down on him. The vamp’s arms and legs moved faster as he ran toward the car. David would have laughed at the almost comical way the vamp ran, with a high step and arms pumping, if bloodlust hadn’t been coursing so hotly through his body. He’d tear this one apart limb from limb for daring to think about taking Mia from him.
The vamp skidded around the front fender of a car and nearly went down. Jumping onto the car, David’s foot dented the hood as he leapt across it. The vamp spun toward him to reveal the stake pointed toward David, aimed directly at his heart, but it was too late for him to be able to stop his forward momentum. In midair, David twisted to the side to avoid taking the stake to his chest.
He seized the collar of the vamp’s jacket and yanked back. The vamp’s stake drove through his arm, tearing through flesh and muscle before embedding itself against his humerus. David snarled in pain and fury as he crashed onto the ground with the man. Spinning, he pulled the vampire’s body through the air, over the top of his, before smashing it into the ground with enough force to crack the pavement, and the vamp’s spine.
The man howled and his arms flailed as he tried to beat against David, but his legs remained unmoving on the ground. David seized the man’s throat and clenched tight to silence his screams. The vamp’s face turned florid when his air was effectively cut off. Blood spilled between David’s fingers as he dug deeper to tear the man’s head from his shoulders.
“David, wait!” Mia gasped as she skidded to a halt beside them. “I know him!”
David’s head shot up, his grip on the vamp’s throat easing as her words penetrated the haze of murderous fury pulsing through him. He looked from her to the scrawny man pinned beneath him. Close up, he could see the bits of debris stuck in the vamp’s beard, the oily slickness of his hair, and the smears of dirt across his cheeks and under his eyes.
“How do you know him?” David demanded.
Mia glanced nervously around the motel parking lot as everything around them remained hushed. Scenting the air, she caught the coppery aroma of blood beneath the refuse stink of the vampire David held. She sensed no other vampires around them, or humans. They’d been loud enough that they should have attracted the attention of the other guests, and the hotel worker, yet no lights turned on and no one peeked their heads out to see what was going on.
“Oh,” she breathed as realization sank in and her gaze fell to the man David held. “You killed them all.”
The man made a gurgled noise and his eyes rolled in his head as David’s fingers bit into his flesh again. Mia crept closer to inspect the vampire more closely. Her eyes narrowed as she took in his high cheekbones and brown eyes. At one time, he’d been a good fifty pounds heavier. Those brown eyes had been clear and smiling instead of glazed and bloodshot. She closed her eyes as her mind ran through the many faces she’d seen over her years on the streets, but this man went further back than that. He was from deeper within her memory.
“You had a laugh like Santa,” she mumbled. “I loved it as a child.”
Her eyes opened and her head canted to the side as recognition finally settled over her. “Miles,” she murmured. “He was a friend of my father’s. I haven’t seen him since I was twelve.” She lifted her head to meet David’s gaze. “He had some kind of falling out with my dad shortly after we moved into the house that caught on fire. My parents never talked to me about it after.”
David’s hands eased further on Miles’s throat. Reaching up, David yanked the stake from his arm and pressed it against Miles’s chest, directly above his heart. “I’m guessing Miles here got messed up in things he shouldn’t have been messed up in, and your dad told him to stay away.”
David pushed down on the stake, piercing through Miles’s skin until he hit the bone beyond. Miles grunted as his hands tore at David’s arms, shredding his skin. David barely felt the gashes as the reassuring crunch of bone filled his ears. He’d never relished violence or killing, but he savored this.
“Am I right?” he demanded of Miles, then twisted the stake deeper into his flesh.
“Yes!” Miles choked out through his bruised throat.
“You’re the one who turned her in to Drake and his cohorts before. You’re the reason she was taken and abused,” David guessed and pushed deeper. “You’re mixed up in all the sketchy shit, and you knew what Drake was doing with purebreds. You sold Mia to him in exchange for drugs, or humans, or whatever it is you’re hooked on. Right?” he demanded.
“Yes!” Miles wailed and stopped tearing at David’s arms to grab at his hands. He tried to break David’s grip on the stake, but David only pressed down harder and grinned when more bone crunched.
Miles glanced at Mia when she stepped closer. “I liked you when I was a child. I was sad when you vanished from our lives,” she whispered.
“How did you find her to turn her in the first time?” David demanded.
Miles’s eyes darted away from Mia to focus on the sky. David twisted the stake deeper when he didn’t speak. “Answer my question!” he barked.
Miles jerked beneath him and tore away more flesh when his nails dug into David’s hands. David seized one of Miles’s hands and smashed it into the pavement, breaking the bones in it with a satisfying crack. Miles groaned as the fingers of his good hand continued to try to clasp the stake, but the fight suddenly went out of him and his hand fell limply to the pavement.
“It was a coincidence. I spotted her one night when she was leaving work,” Miles whispered. “I remembered her from when she was young. I knew she was a purebred, and I knew they were looking and paying for purebred vamps like her. I made a phone call to some vampires I knew, and they took her the next night.”
So that was how her captors had known she was a purebred and where to find her, Mia realized as her stomach rolled over. “What did you get out of it?” Mia demanded.
Miles licked his lips. “Humans,” he murmured. “They had their own addictions, and I indulged in their blood to satisfy my own needs. I believed they would be enough to last me for a year, but….”
“You’ve killed them already.” David sneered in disgust.
Mia shuddered and hugged her middle. “Are they still looking for purebreds?” she asked.
“Some are, yes,” Miles muttered.
“You were going to sell me back to them,” she said flatly. “That’s why you came here tonight. How did you find me again?”
Miles kept his gaze focused on the sky as he replied. “Once I learned some of the purebreds had escaped, and that you were one of them, I thought you might eventually return to your old home. I didn’t know it had burnt down at the time, or that a new home and new family lived there, but I decided it was still worth a shot to monitor the property.
“I put a camera up and took control of the family. They were told to call me if anyone they didn’t know showed up there. The father had the boy call me when you arrived. I checked the camera and confirmed it was you. I told the boy to put the tracking device I’d left with them on your vehicle.”
Horror curdled through her as she recalled Kip running around the SUV and laughing. It had seemed so innocent at the time, but it had covered nefarious intentions. Mia’s head spun as she tried to process everything he was saying. “Why didn’t you sell me to those vampires when I was younger?”
“I wasn’t that far gone when you were a child. There was still something decent in me then. There’s not anything left in me now,” Miles muttered and his eyes came back to hers. “Do you still like the stars?”
Mia’s breath caught in her throat at the reminder that he’d once been close enough to her family to know this about her. Unable to speak, she looked to David.
Though he’d been enjoying making Miles pay in the beginning, David found no satisfaction in driving the stake through his heart. The man was broken and pitiful, a shadow o
f what he should have been. Blood gurgled out of Miles’s mouth and trickled down his chin; relief filled his gaze before his eyes rolled back in his head, and he went completely still.
David rose to his feet and wiped his hands on his jeans before walking over to enfold Mia in his arms. Her hands fisted in his shirt. “Are you okay?” he asked as he smoothed her hair back from her forehead.
“Yes. I… I at least have answers now as to how they found me, but I never would have guessed…. I have answers, and that’s all that matters. He’s dead and we have each other.”
“Always,” he vowed as he nuzzled her hair. “I have to get this place cleaned up, and we have to get out of here soon. We don’t know if they might have called other vampires here too. I doubt they wanted to share their bounty, but we can’t take that chance. I messaged Aiden. He’s gathering reinforcements and coming for us, but we have to be long gone from this place before they could make it here from New York.”
Mia clung to him for a moment before stepping out of the comfort of his arms. “Let’s do this,” she said firmly.
Together they gathered the bodies of the vampires. David took pictures of them and sent them to Aiden, so Ronan would be able to see them. Ronan, or one of his men, may know who the other vamps were, what circles they ran in, or some other information that would help them track down the vampires who were continuing to buy and sell purebreds. All Mia could remember about Miles was his first name, but Ronan may be able to come up with more information about him.
They placed the vamps’ bodies inside the tiny cottage they’d rented for the night. When it came time to deal with the humans’ remains, Mia stood by the Range Rover while David worked to obscure their bite wounds. She couldn’t bring herself to look into the unseeing eyes of the humans who had been nothing more than innocent bystanders.
David syphoned gas from the cars in the parking lot and doused the vampires’ bodies with it. The older motel had no security equipment, but he still removed his name from the blood-splattered guest registry while the dead clerk lay at his feet. After leaving the main office, he walked back to the cottage with the vampires’ bodies in it, pulled out the matches he’d discovered in the office, and set the building on fire.
Fractured (Vampire Awakenings, Book 6) Page 17