Scarface sneered. “Just give us the broad and you won’t get hurt…much.” He chuckled at his accomplices, a sick, lopsided rictus made distorted by the stiffened skin around the scar.
“You think I’m just going to hand her over, you’re fucking nuts!” In one well-practiced move, he reached inside his jacket and pulled his gun out of its holster, swinging the pistol in a wide arc to cover all of the men. “And the first guy to try, is going to be alligator bait.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the others rushing toward him, and he flicked a glance in his direction to snap off a quick shot. A sharp report pierced the night, and the assailant dropped with a howl, holding his shattered thigh.
One down.
The rest moved in.
Chapter Ten
It was impossible to keep them all in his sights.
An arm was pulled back, the dull glint off a blade and Randy fired off another shot. Missed. He spun around, hearing a sharp denial from Crissy and her arms trying to hold on around his waist as another man wrenched her away from him. As he reached out and tried to grab for her, he grunted and stopped as a burn flared in the shoulder of his gun arm, a knife slicing cleanly through fabric and finally lodging deep in the muscle. Shit. His hand rendered useless, the gun clattered onto the street. Pain shot through his arm as he pulled the knife free, grunting as the sharp edge seared and tore his flesh. He glanced around for Crissy, a growl erupting as he saw her being yanked roughly away. Before he could move in her direction, his arms were wrenched behind his back and held tight, leaving him gasping with the pain.
“Now that was just plain dumb.”
Randy gritted his teeth and held his breath as Crissy was pulled up against the chest of Scarface, one arm around her waist, the other hand holding the knife to her neck.
Oh, baby, I’m so sorry…
Scarface frowned. “Now you’ve got my boys mad, and we might just have to take it out on the lady. The boss didn’t say nothing about her arriving in pris-teen shape. Whaddya say, boys? You feel like a bit of fun before we finish this loser off?” He laughed, the sound dripping with malevolence. “Maybe he even wants to watch.”
Heart pounding in his chest, Randy couldn’t tear his eyes away from Crissy, from the frozen look of terror on her face.
“Hey, Franco. Come over here.”
The thug standing closest to Scarface wandered over.
“Whaddya think, Franco? Them’s great tits, huh?” Scarface’s eyes leered over Crissy’s shoulder at the thin fabric pulled tight across her chest. “Why don’t you show ‘em so that Mr. Macho there can get a good look.”
Randy nearly howled when the filthy bastard grabbed the neckline of Crissy’s top, yanking it sharply, the thin fabric surrendering to the sudden force and gaping open in two pieces. But just as “Franco” got his hands on them, twisting the nipples to Crissy’s muted mewl of pain, he stopped, disbelief spreading over his face. He dropped to the ground, a neat hole in the center of his forehead.
Scarface spun around, holding Crissy in front of him like a shield. “Who is it? Who’s there?”
“You really don’t want to know, scumbag,” came a deep voice out of the dark.
Randy’s senses were rioting. Vamp! Jeesus, could it get any worse?
“Hand over the lady, nice and slow, and you might live to see another day.”
“Who the hell are you? You don’t work for the boss.”
“True. Guess you could say I…freelance.”
A soft pop was followed by a groan as the man holding Randy loosened his grip and moaned, before falling to the ground.
“You’ll let me go?”
“Sure. Release her and move away. Before I change my mind and stop feeling so generous.”
Scarface immediately pushed Crissy away from him, backing away as he did so, leaving Crissy standing frozen in place, clothes in disarray, a look of complete shock replacing the terror of just seconds before. Admittedly, the new guy looked pretty scary—ankle-length, black leather coat, long dark hair—the effect was menacing, deadly. Then the man smiled and white teeth flashed in the moonlight.
Scarface let out a cry as a bullet tore into his abdomen. He looked up stupidly. “B-but you said…”
The white teeth flashed again. “Sorry, changed my mind.”
He took another step closer and held out his hand to Crissy.
“Hello, Sunshine.”
Randy stood unflinching as pain from his wound streaked through his body. Absently he registered the trickle of blood down his arm and placed his hand over it, feeling it come away wet and sticky. Still, he took a few steps toward Crissy, determined to get her to safety.
The gun swung around in his direction. “Don’t move, wolf-man. I’d hate to have to shoot you too.”
Crissy still hadn’t moved. “R-René? Is it really you?” Her words, soft, trembling, echoed her disbelief.
Oh, fucking hell. He remembered that name. This was the vamp, the one who always seemed to be around. He glanced at Crissy’s face and his heart started to pound and race at the look in her eyes. So it was true. This vamp’s “Christina”, Crissy—it was his Crissy. Oh hell!
“Yes, Sunshine, it’s me.”
A soft warning growl slipped out through Randy’s lips as she took a step toward René.
“Crissy! No!” he cried out.
No flinch, no flutter of an eyelash. It was as if she never even heard him.
“But how? I thought…I don’t understand…” She reached up to touch the vamp, as if to reassure herself that he was real, not some figment of her imagination.
With a pointed look at Randy, the mysterious man grabbed Crissy and was gone.
Randy dropped to the ground, holding his wounded shoulder and gritting his teeth against the pain.
Goddammit! What now?
Blinking stupidly, Crissy stood mute, unable to believe her eyes as she held the torn pieces of her blouse together over goose-bumped flesh. What the hell had just happened?
With a nervous glance, she took in the unfamiliar room. Dark, save for the two lamps and the fire flickering in a huge marble hearth, windowless, the room, nevertheless, was sumptuously furnished—antique furniture, huge four-poster bed with silk canopy. She wondered absently where they were and, more importantly, how they’d gotten here.
Her eyes returned to the man in front of her, taking in the roughly handsome cast of his face in the candlelight. Sinfully sexy lips. Ocean blue eyes a girl could drown in. The long brown hair that flowed over his shoulders. All so heartbreakingly familiar. Like the notes from a favorite song, the memories washed over her. It was as if the last ten years had just faded away and she was twenty again. Her eyes watered, and she blinked furiously to stop the spill onto her cheeks.
“René? What just happened? Who were those men? And what about Randy? What-what are you doing here?”
Questions…so many questions. Feeling unsteady, she looked around for a chair. Spotting an antique brocade couch a few steps away, she backed up to it on trembling legs and lowered herself onto it.
René watched her intently in that way of his that felt like he could read her mind. From somewhere deep inside, tucked under a mountain of lost dreams and a tear in her heart that she’d long thought had healed over, a disbelieving sob broke free. Followed by another.
Suddenly, he moved, shrugging off his coat and sitting next to her as he draped it over her shoulders. “Shh, Sunshine. It’s just the shock.”
“Shock? Shock?”
Emotions—old, almost forgotten, a mixture of pleasure and pain—bombarded her senses. Pleasure at the memories of her first lover. Her first love. The man who had shown her the indescribable delight to be found in making love to someone who held your heart. Pain from waking up alone one morning and finding him gone, her heart in pieces.
“I thought… She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I thought you were dead. I heard…” She choked back a cry, vaguely aware in some part of
her consciousness that René had wrapped her up in his arms and was holding her tightly. The smell of him was so familiar, an indefinable medley of scents that triggered memories she had thought were dead and buried.
“I know, Christina. I had to leave. It was too dangerous for me to stay.”
She lifted her head and searched his eyes, confusion streaking through her. “Dangerous? How? Was someone trying to hurt you?”
“Not directly.” His eyes bored into hers, their stormy depths filled with a degree of pain she could only guess at.
It was some moments before he spoke.
“I’m sorry to come back now and disrupt your life.” He reached up to brush errant strands of hair back off her face, the gentle touch achingly familiar. “I never meant to cause you pain.”
“So why now?”
“You were in danger.”
“Yes, but how did you know?
“You have many questions you need answered. And there is something I need to be certain of too, Sunshine.”
Just hearing him call her that… He’d liked to say she was his ray of sunshine, the one bright spot in his dark world. The voice was so familiar, the scent of him that had filled her head for months after he’d gone, so close now, and all the questions she’d asked, cried out in the night for months afterward, spilled from her lips. Tears tumbled in a slow line down her cheeks, but she was unable to stop them.
It felt like her heart was breaking all over again. “I want to know, René. I want to know why you left. Who was hurting you? Why couldn’t you talk to me about it?”
He leaned his forehead against hers. Inhaling deeply. “I’ve missed you, sweet. Every single day.”
“René…”
His head lifted, intense eyes catching hers, eyes so tortured as to make her breath catch in her throat. “Of all people, you were the one I couldn’t talk to, because…” His words trailed off into the night, the thought left flapping in the breeze like the tatters strands of a broken dream.
And then came the realization, the knowing. The understanding.
She wriggled around on the seat until she faced him. “Who, me?” A small flinch sharpened the already tight line of his jaw, confirmation of her words. “You left because of me? But I would never have hurt you. I loved you. I thought you loved me.”
“There was a reason, sweet.” The same strong hands she remembered, long, tapered fingers, reached up to smooth away the tears. “I lo—” He swallowed. “I loved you too. So, so much.” A small, regretful smile lifted a corner of his mouth when her eyes widened. “I could never say the words, could I, my love? And now, perhaps, it is too late.”
“But I don’t understand. What was the danger? You knew I loved you, that I would have given my life for you.”
The light caress of his fingers over her cheek, down her throat, sent a long-forgotten, achingly familiar shiver of delight over her skin.
“Exactly. You know what I am, sweet. I never tried to hide it from you.”
“No,” she cried. “And that didn’t matter to me. I told you that.”
“I know. But you were so bright and fresh and my…” ray of sunshine. A half smile tilted the corner of his mouth as the unspoken words hung in the air between them, and he smoothed a hand down over her hair, “I couldn’t take that joy, that love of life away from you. If I’d stayed, I would have.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Christina, you took my breath away. You still do. And with it, my control. I swore never to…never to take your blood. It was a fool’s promise. Each night became harder and harder to resist the pull, knowing how sweet, how indescribable the taste of you would be. That last night… Do you remember?”
“Perfectly. Every moment.”
He pulled her toward him, laying a soft kiss on her forehead. “So you think. But not quite.” He pulled back to meet her eyes again, the line of his jaw hardening, his grip tightening briefly.
“What do you mean?” Her brow creased in confusion.
He swallowed visibly, followed by a ragged, indrawn breath. “When you…when you came, the-the scent, the sound of your blood…I-I couldn’t help myself. I did what I swore I would never do to you. While you came, while I came I bit you. And the taste…” His eyes flared as the memory flashed through his mind. “My god, I couldn’t stop. It was like the gates of heaven opening up to a dying man.” His eyes fluttered shut as he remembered. “It set off some sort of explosion in my head, in my cock. The two were somehow linked—the most indescribable ecstasy. For as long as my orgasm lasted, I couldn’t let go. It went on and on…” His eyes opened, full of pain. “By the time I’d finished, you’d passed out in my arms, your body limp… I thought, well I thought I’d gone too far, taken too much. God, Christina—” A look of pure torture filled his eyes. “I thought I’d nearly killed you. So I…replenished what I’d taken. I forced you to take my blood.” So much pent-up anguish poured out in those words, so much remorse, that she wrapped her arms around him, nestled against him to try to comfort him. “I stayed only until I knew you would be all right. But I knew I couldn’t trust myself to be with you anymore. Just before dawn, I left.”
“No. You can’t have. I’d remember.” She raised her face. “Wouldn’t I?”
A sad look crossed his face. “I wiped your memories, sweet. I couldn’t stand that you would know just how much of a beast I really am.”
“Oh, René, I never thought that of you. Would never…” She dropped her head to his shoulder, feeling every bit of the pain he must have gone through. “But what brought you back? Why now?”
He stroked the back of her head where it lay against his chest. Fingers gently caressing her scalp. “When I took your blood, and then gave you back what I’d taken…well, because of that we’re bonded in a way. It’s the first stage of the transformation.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “You mean I’m—”
“No, not fully. It takes three such instances before a human fully converts. But through that link, I’ve been able to sense all along how you are—happy, sad…hurt. It was also a way for me to ensure no other vampire would touch you. I couldn’t risk another coming along and finishing what I’d started.”
“So you knew what I went through when you went away?”
His body tightened, arms wrapping tighter around her. “Yes. And it nearly killed me knowing I was to blame.”
“So you only came back because you sensed I was in danger…”
“Not completely.”
In a moment of clarity, a window opened in her mind, freeing a shadowy memory. Her head snapped up and she looked at René. “It was you. At my place when that slimy little thug attacked me and tried to steal my camera bag. You were there.”
“Not exactly. I could feel your pain, your fear. I was close, but not close enough to reach you in time. So I acted through you. To protect you.”
“Through me? Like in my body?”
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “Not quite, but the concept is the same.”
“God! This is too much.” She started to shiver in his arms. In a fluid, graceful movement, he stood and scooped her up.
“What are you doing, René?” she asked as he carried her to the bed and laid her down.
“You need to warm up, sweet. You’re cold.” He removed his coat from around her shoulders then loosened the tight grip she had on the tattered remnants of her blouse. “Trust me, Christina. I would never deliberately hurt you.”
“I know that, René.” She looked up at him, her eyes trapping his. “I always knew that.”
She released her grip on the blouse, letting her hands drop to her sides. Quickly, he undressed her, motioning with his head for her to lie down before he pulled the fluffy quilt up over her. Leaning down, he kissed her forehead.
“Sleep for now. There will be time for more questions later.”
“But wait—”
“Later, Sunshine. I promise.”
Her eyelids became surprisin
gly leaden and, unable to fight the tiredness that descended on her like a heavy blanket, she closed her eyes, surrendering to the cocoon of warmth and safety that surrounded her.
René waited until he was sure she slept then moved quickly upstairs to an equally elaborate living room. He shrugged his leather coat back on. She would be safe for the short period it would take him to feed. It had drained almost all his resources of energy to transport her to his house, leaving him shaky and incredibly hungry, and he needed to replenish himself. He couldn’t risk his hunger getting out of control later. Not with Christina. Not again.
Making his way down a short hallway to his den, he pressed a button under his desk and waited while a hidden door opened and revealed an unlit passageway. The dark, musty passage would bring him to the surface blocks away. At least it was some assurance that her location would not be discovered.
* * * * *
Two hours. Two fucking hours. Where the hell was she?
Watching Crissy disappear with the vamp had nearly killed him. A strange sense of panic, of things spinning out of his control had rushed through him. The guy was dangerous—he could smell it, sense it. He didn’t give a shit what Marcus thought. The man was trouble.
He would have followed her. Every instinct had screamed at him to do so, but there was no goddamn scent to follow. Nothing.
Jesus, what if she decided to stay with him?
No! Fuck! Dammit, she was his. His shoulder throbbed relentlessly. His body itched—had been for the last hour. And the wolf inside him felt like howling—in rage, anger…despair. Fuck. Just when they were starting to sort things out, get closer. He strode restlessly in front of the driveway.
Nothing was moving. The night was still, silent.
Reluctant to go inside, he paced the front porch as he prayed for Chad to answer his cell phone this time.
“Pick up, dammit, you mangy cat!”
Finally, the sound of Chad’s voice interrupted the annoying ringing in his ear. “Hey, what’s up?”
“About fucking time!”
“Geez, what’s got up your ass? And before you ask, yes, I’m working. Marcus and I are talking to his boy who’s been following the vamp.”
Candid Camera Page 14