Blood Hunger (An Adult Paranormal Romance) (Deathless Night Series #1)

by L. E. Wilson

  The mission they were about to embark on had him more uneasy than usual. Failure was not an option, or they would lose Luukas forever. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but he did. The waiting to leave had him ready to jump out of his own skin.

  He needed to feed. And he needed the release that pain would bring. Other’s pain, and his own.

  The doors opened onto the garage. Stepping out, Dante turned his head as a black SUV came careening around the corner, swerving way too close to where he was walking.

  He smiled. Looked like his meal was coming to him.

  Tires squealed as the driver saw him standing there, and he saw him wrench the wheel to the side to try to avoid him. He didn’t so much as flinch as the side of the vehicle missed him by only a few inches, before it screeched to a halt just a few feet away. The back doors opened, and two males got out.

  “Hey man, are you ok?” One of them asked Dante, coming up on his left.

  The other snuck around to his right.

  Dante sneered. The piece of shit thought he could sneak up on him? He turned his head to see what he was up to…and then there was nothing but darkness.

  ***

  The matte black Hummer pushed deeper and deeper into the mountains, blending in perfectly with the darkness that surrounded it. It was slow going, the road they were on well hidden from the main freeway, and rarely used. Most people didn’t even know it existed, or where it led.

  As they swerved around fallen branches and water-filled potholes the size of small ponds, Emma braced herself in the back seat, and thanked God she wasn’t prone to motion sickness. Although she was probably going to be black and blue before this ride was over.

  In spite of the rutted out road and Nik’s reckless driving, Emma was nonetheless relieved to be back on the ground. Time being of the essence, they’d taken a private helicopter to Vancouver, lifting straight off of the roof of their apartment building.

  “We’re taking that??” Emma had balked when they’d exited the elevator on the roof. She’d tried, but failed, to contain her panic at the sight of the small aircraft.

  Digging in her heels, she’d refused to go any farther, but Nik’s firm grip on her arm would brook no argument. In no short order, she found herself in her seat, strapped in tight, with headphones on her head.

  Once they were up in the air, however, her anxiety took a back seat to the stunning view. The city of Seattle was absolutely breathtaking from the air. The lights from the high-rises lit up the night sky and reflected off of the water of the Puget Sound, as pretty as any Christmas display.

  She even saw the Space Needle!

  They’d flown uninterrupted into Canada, landing at the Vancouver airport. It was a thrilling, if nerve-wracking, experience for Emma. Small town girl that she was, she’d never flown in a helicopter before, or flown at all, for that matter, before coming out to Seattle. And helicopters were quite a different experience than airplanes.

  If she hadn’t been so anxious about the flight, it may have occurred to her to question how they were able to cross the border without going through any type of customs. But as it was, she was just grateful they’d made it one piece.

  The Hummer was waiting for them when they’d landed at the airport, sitting right next to the helicopter pad. The burly, older gentleman who’d driven it out to them hung on tight to his driver’s cap as they landed, and waited by the vehicle just long enough to inform Nik it was full of gas and ready to go.

  After buckling Emma up in the back, Nik shook his hand and climbed into the driver’s seat. Once Aiden had thrown their backpacks into the back storage area and climbed into the passenger seat, they were on their way.

  As they left the airport and headed out of the city, Emma peered out the windows, but there wasn’t much she could see. Once they’d left the populated areas, Nik had turned off the headlights, blending them into the night they were traveling through. When she’d asked him how he could drive like that, he’d told her he could see better without them on.

  That short conversation had been almost an hour ago. Now that they were actually on their way, the mood was tense. Even Aiden was quiet for a change.

  They’d turned off the main nonexistent road a while ago, and were now bumping along a barely-there side road, when Aiden let out a frustrated noise as he tried, again, to contact the rest of their team.

  After receiving the go ahead to go to their meeting point, Dante and the rest of the team had gone radio silent.

  “I’m not getting anything,” he repeated for the fourth time. “Where the bloody hell are they?”

  “Have you tried the other channels?” Nik asked. “Or tried calling Christian directly?”

  “Yes. Yes. I’ve tried everything.” Pulling out his cell phone, Aiden tried again to reach Dante. Putting it on speaker, they all listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. After the fifth one, the voicemail picked up, and one of the most sinister sounding voices Emma had ever heard gritted out, simply, “Dante”, as if daring the person on the other end to leave a message. It actually made the hair stand up on the back of her neck, and she was very glad it was Nik and not this “Dante” vampire who’d come for her.

  If the phone had been in her hands, she would’ve hung up immediately. And thrown it out the window for good measure.

  But Aiden, true to form, was not intimidated. “Commander! Where the bloody hell are you?” Hanging up, he picked up the radio again. Still nothing.

  Nik kept driving, chewing on the inside of his cheek, his expression thoughtful. “We’ll go on to the meeting point. Maybe something happened to their radio.”

  “All of them?” scoffed Aiden. “I’ve tried to reach all three of them via cell phone and radio.”

  For the first time since she’d met him, he sounded worried. “Where the hell are they, Nik? What if they were discovered?” He chucked his radio into the console. “What if we’re driving directly into a bloody trap?”

  A look of concern passed between the two vampires.

  “Wait a minute.” Emma had just grasped what Aiden had said. “We’re storming the sadistic bitch’s lair with only three others to help?” She’d been nothing but a mass of nerves since leaving the apartment, but she’d been consoling herself with the thought that they would be meeting an army of vicious vampires who were going to storm in there and rescue Luukas and Keira - all cavalry style - while she stayed safely in the background until if/when the time came that she could go get her sister.

  No one would get hurt except the bad guys, and she and Keira would hug and cry and go back to their normal and boring lives. Forgetting all about the past seven years, and all this witch nonsense, and most especially, one particular vampire. Blood bond be damned.

  Was that really so much to ask?

  With a quiet sigh, she knew it was wishful thinking. She’d never condemn Nik to die. No, she would do all she could to figure out some kind of arrangement between them. One they could both live with. “Live” being the prominent word there.

  “Five of us are normally more than enough to get the job done. Besides,” Nik suddenly turned off onto an even smaller road, more like a trail actually, seemingly right into the midst of the thick stand of trees. “A large party is more easily spotted. Easier to surprise the enemy this way.”

  They drove another 20 minutes or so before Nik finally slowed and pulled off to the side. Turning off the engine, he looked back at Emma, a finger over his lips indicating for her to keep quiet.

  Sitting very still, she listened with them. She didn’t know what she would hear or see before they did, but she tried anyway.

  Suddenly, without a word between them, Nik and Aiden opened their doors and got out of the vehicle. Quietly telling Emma to “Stay here, and lock the doors.” they melted into the night, leaving her alone in the dark. Crawling up to the front seat, she locked the doors as directed and tried to see where they’d gone, but there was nothing but blackness. They’d disappeared in the blink of an e
ye.

  After ten of the longest minutes of her life, her breath caught on a scream as they appeared again in front of the Hummer, scaring the hell out of her. She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to the speed of vampires.

  Nik came over to her side and indicated for her to unlock the doors while Aiden went to the back to get their packs out. Opening the driver’s side door, he grabbed her by the waist and effortlessly plucked her out and set her one the ground. “Looks clear. Go with Aiden while I camouflage the Hummer.”

  She started to ask him why it was ok for her to be alone with Aiden now, but not at the apartment, when she got a good look at the strained lines of his face. Instead, she just nodded and decided to save her teasing for another time.

  Tromping off through the undergrowth after Aiden, branches and wet leaves whipping against her legs, she was glad she’d put on her heavy jeans, and not her more comfortable yoga pants.

  She wanted to ask him if they’d heard or seen anything indicating that the others were in the area or on their way, but didn’t know if it was safe to make any unnecessary noise, so she held her tongue.

  Aiden moved silently through the brush in front of her, like the predator he was. Following close behind him, she sounded like something more along the lines of a large elephant, or maybe even an entire herd of them.

  “Through here, luv.” Holding back some lush, green branches, Aiden ushered her through an opening in the side of a large rock face. It was so well disguised, she would’ve never seen it there, which she guessed was the point. Once inside, she walked forward a few paces but couldn’t see enough of where she was going to continue, so she stopped and waited for Aiden to re-cover the entrance and join her. As he did so, the darkness became absolute.

  She jumped as she felt him slide by her. “Hang on to my backpack and stay behind me. Watch your step. I dread the punishment I’ll receive if I return you to Nikulas with so much as a skinned knee.”

  “You make me sound like his property.” Reaching out blindly in front of her, she found his pack and held on.

  “You are his property now, luv, no matter what he wants to believe. Don’t delude yourself into thinking otherwise.” They started walking slowly through the tunnel. “Until he dies, or you do.”

  “Will he really die if he doesn’t feed from me?”

  “Yes. Eventually.”

  “And he knows this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why hasn’t he spoken to me about it?”

  “Because he’s a bloody Estonian bastard, that’s why.”

  She wasn’t sure what his heritage had to do with Nik’s reluctance to feed from a real person, but all conversation was put on hold as she concentrated on following Aiden without falling on her face.

  After about 2 minutes of walking blindly through the tunnel, he stopped. “Let go of my pack Em, and stay here.”

  “Where are you going?” she squeaked. Her voice echoed through a large space. She could hear the constant “drip, drip, drip” of water somewhere off to her right. It was completely and utterly dark. She couldn’t see anything at all.

  When he didn’t answer right away, she started to get anxious. Chewing on her bottom lip, she tried to see something, anything, around her that would give her an indication of where she was. But there was nothing but blackness, and her imagination went into overdrive. What if there were rats down here? Oh God. She hated rats. Or spiders? Or worse, snakes??

  She could feel herself starting to go into a full-blown panic. “Aiden!”

  “I’m just going to get us some light. I would imagine you can’t see very well in here.”

  She heard him moving around a little distance away, and took a halting step towards him before remembering he’d told her to stay where she was.

  “Don’t fret Em, I’m just right here. Your heart sounds like a bloody freight train, luv. Calm down. We vampires only have so much control, mind you.”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t really think Aiden would actually hurt her, but took a long, calming breath just the same. She heard a rustling sound, and then a flashlight beam shone across a large cavern that opened up in front of her.

  “You had a flashlight this entire time?” she hissed. “Is there any particular reason you didn’t use it until now?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t need it until now.” Shining the light around, he found what he was looking for - An old fashioned torch. “Wouldn’t want to waste the batteries,” he explained.

  Taking the torch down from its holder, he dipped it into some kind of noxious smelling liquid in a barrel along the wall, then took a lighter from his pocket and lit it. Placing it back in its holder, he turned off his flashlight.

  “There we go!” Materializing over at the other side of the cavernous room they were in, he found another torch and did the same.

  Emma looked around in awe as she slowly walked further inside. They had traveled down a narrow tunnel through the rock to a natural underground cavern. Smooth limestone walls, swirled with lighter and darker browns, led up to a soaring ceiling at least thirty feet above her head. Under her feet, dirt had been packed down to make an even floor. She could still hear water dripping off to her right, but didn’t see its source.

  Her gaze came back to Aiden, who was putting his flashlight away, and she glowered at him.

  Nik silently entered the room just then. Observing Emma's pissed off expression and Aiden's seemingly oblivious one, he raised an eyebrow. “Did I miss something?”

  Rolling her eyes, Emma walked into the middle of the room where a circle of stones surrounded a fire pit. “Just Aiden…being Aiden.” Plopping herself down on one of the large, flat-topped rocks surrounding it for seating, she threw down her backpack and pulled out a bottled water and a protein bar.

  Taking a closer look around, it became even more obvious that the place had been set up just for occasions like this. “So I take it you guys have been here before?” she ventured.

  Aiden puffed out his chest. “I found this place years ago. Quite the thing, isn’t it? We use it as our meet up area whenever we feel the need to come up here and check on our sweet Leeha.”

  Emma was confused. “So you’ve known all along she’s in this area?” They both nodded. “Then why not come up here until now? If you knew all this time where your brother, and my sister, were…why were they not rescued seven years ago??”

  “We did come here,” Aiden hastened to reassure her. “But the place was deserted. Not a sign of anyone to be found. We have scouts come up occasionally to keep an eye out for her, and we just recently found out that she was back.” He held up his index finger. “The question is, why did she come back now? She has to know we’d be watching for her.”

  Shrugging, he headed to the back of the room where some wood was already cut and stacked up against the wall, calling over his shoulder, “That cheeky female must be up to something. Or possibly she just missed me.”

  Nik sat down on the rock next to her, and gestured to the water bottle she held stuck halfway to her mouth while she blinked, speechless, at Aiden. “Go easy on that stuff, sweetheart.” He took a peek into her bag to see how much was in there. “Just in case.”

  Turning her attention back to Nik, she asked, “How long do you expect us to be here?” She’d been under the impression it wouldn’t be more than a day or two at most.

  “Not long, hopefully, but it’s always good to be prepared. I can’t have you starving to death on me.” He smirked at her, looking a bit like the carefree Nik she’d first met, but she wasn’t in the mood.

  “No, we can’t have that, can we? Because if I die, so do you.” His smile faded as quickly as it’d appeared, and he glared over at his best friend, who was suddenly very busy counting the pieces of wood stacked up in the far corner of the cavern.

  “What the fuck, Aiden? I told you to keep your fucking mouth shut about all that shit.”

  Aiden’s face was the picture of innocence as he pushed off his hood and scr
atched his head. “You did? Are you quite certain? I don’t exactly recall…”

  Nik shot up off of the rock he was sitting on. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?”

  Dropping his hand, Aiden pulled his hood back up over his short, dark hair and calmly met Nik look for look. “What the bloody hell did you expect me to do, mate? Let you kill yourself over your misguided belief that you can never be happy because of what you think happened with Eliana?” He flashed over to stand in front of his friend, eyeball to eyeball, “You’re my best friend. More importantly, I’m your Guardian. As such, I am required to do everything in my power to keep you healthy and alive. It’s bad enough I already let you get away with drinking that fucking bagged blood. I cannot…I WILL NOT…let you commit suicide because of an unfortunate accident that happened in the past.”

  “It’s not your choice, Aiden.”

  “Sod off, Nikulas. It IS my choice. I refuse to stand idly by and let you do this.” Grabbing Emma by the arm, he hauled her up to stand next to him, ignoring Nik’s immediate warning growl at the sight of his hands on her. “This is a good woman right here. This is a strong woman. She would be a brilliant mate. I like her. And she cares about you, you bloody arse.”

  Emma glowered at him and his manhandling, and yanked her arm from his grasp. “Look, if you don’t want to be with me…” she said, turning to Nik, feeling the ever-present blush stealing across her face. She cleared her throat before continuing, “For whatever the reason, that’s ok.”

  Nik dropped his head back, looking heavenward. Not finding any help there, he thrust both hands into his hair in exasperation. “Emma…”

  “We can figure something else out, Nik.” She grabbed his hands as she looked up at him imploringly, “You don’t have to die! I can just donate into a bag or something.”

  Turning his hands over, he carefully gripped her small fingers in his. “You don’t get it. I would rather die, than hurt you.”

  “You’re not listening! I could donate, like blood donors. That would work, right?”

  Neither of them noticed Aiden quietly slip away and leave the cave.