Ravaged (Vampire Awakenings, Book 7)

by Brenda K. Davies

  His foul appetites had put him in this position, and because of it, he’d placed Maggie in danger. “I’ll keep you safe,” he murmured as self-hatred grew within him.

  “That means a lot coming from the guy who sucked a pint from me earlier,” she retorted. “Without asking me first, by the way. Which I think should be proper etiquette before sinking your fangs into someone’s throat, just so you know.”

  “Noted.”

  “Hmm,” Maggie grunted and sent him a side-eyed glare.

  It was going to be difficult to get her to warm up to him, he realized, but he’d work on that later. Now, he had to get a hold of Saxon, let him know what happened, and find somewhere safe for Maggie to stay. Too much had happened, the bodies of the Savages were too scattered, and too many humans were involved for him to be able to clean this mess up by himself.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “Like I’m going to tell you?”

  “Do you have a phone at your place?”

  “No.”

  “Magdalene—”

  “No one calls me that,” she interrupted. “And I don’t have a landline. I’m not eighty, are you?”

  Caught off guard by her question, he did a double-take before chuckling. “Maybe one day, but I turned twenty-five on February twenty-seventh. And how old are you?”

  “Twenty-four. Are vampires immortal?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. So anyway, I don’t have a phone at my place.”

  Aiden’s hand fell to his empty pockets again. He’d always kept his cell in the front pocket of his jeans. “Did I have my phone with me in the ambulance?” he asked her.

  “I didn’t go through your coat pockets. Once I discovered a crossbow, I decided it was best not to touch your things.”

  “I kept my phone in my pants. Did you notice it?”

  “I didn’t see any phone when we put you in the ambulance.”

  Aiden stopped at the end of the road. There were a few cars parked nearby, probably from overnight employees working the warehouses. At the end of the road was a cross street. A few cars idled at a red light there. When they started driving, one of them turned toward them and crept forward. He’d run at least a mile from the ambulance before stopping, not nearly as far as he would have liked, but he’d had to check on Maggie.

  He should have gone further.

  CHAPTER 13

  Aiden’s fangs throbbed as he watched the vehicle, fully prepared to destroy any threat lurking within it. Most Savages preferred to use their feet as transportation when they hunted. It was a lot easier to jump someone and kill them on foot than it was to park a car and go after them, but he’d come across Savages hunting from cars before.

  The streetlights illuminated the couple behind the wheel. From somewhere nearby, music thumped, and he suspected someone was throwing a party in one of the warehouses. They could go to that party in search of a phone; any man would gladly hand his over to Maggie if she asked for it. However, he wasn’t about to send her into somewhere with people he didn’t know alone, and she was right, in his condition, he would only attract unnecessary attention.

  He felt the pockets of his jeans again as he recalled the phone in his hotel room. He’d tucked the key card to his room into his back pocket, but it was gone too. The hotel had been about as nondescript as it got, there weren’t any cameras, but there had been a fair amount of foot traffic on the street outside it.

  He could change the memories of the clerk, but he’d never go unnoticed by pedestrians in his condition, and he couldn’t alter the minds of everyone he encountered. Also, if the police found the key card, they might go to the hotel before he could cover this up.

  The phone and key card wouldn’t lead back to him in any way. The phone was a burner, the hotel room rented under another name, and the clerk wouldn’t be able to recall his appearance. Aiden had twisted that memory in his mind. It wasn’t often Ronan’s men messed up, but they had strict regulations in place to cover their asses in case it happened.

  He wasn’t one of Ronan’s men yet, he still had more training to go through, but he followed their rules and precautions. After tonight, Ronan might decide to cut him loose and Aiden wouldn’t blame him.

  He had to return to the alley where he’d been attacked to see if his phone had fallen out somewhere there. If he couldn’t find it, he would have to go back to Carha’s club. He didn’t want Maggie anywhere near Carha. From what he’d seen of Maggie tonight, she could hold her own, but Carha was a malignant, twisted thing.

  Carha was also his shameful secret; Maggie could be the redemption his ravaged soul needed.

  He could make his way to Saxon instead of returning to the alley or Carha’s, but his meeting place with Saxon had been twelve blocks beyond the club. Without Maggie, he could cover the distance in no time, but he couldn’t move as fast with her. Trying to reach Saxon would only waste more time and, with the Savages hunting them, put Maggie at unnecessary risk for longer.

  He had to take care of this mess if he was going to keep all those he cared about safe. It had been months since he’d seen his young nieces and nephews, but he loved them all and would die for them. Their lives would be in peril if the truth of vampires ever came out to the human world.

  As much as he preferred to shelter Maggie from Carha, he might not be able to.

  “This way,” he said and turned to the right.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My phone might have fallen out in the alley.” He wasn’t going to mention Carha’s place unless it became necessary.

  Some of the color leeched from her face. “We’re going back there?”

  “Yes.”

  “There are probably still police all over the scene,” she said.

  “I’ll deal with that when we get there.”

  “You could let me go. I promise I won’t say anything about what I saw tonight or vampires. I prefer not being locked away for the rest of my life because people think I’m crazy.”

  “I can’t let you go until I know you’ll be safe.” He didn’t want to let her go at all, but he might not have a choice if she decided to be free of him.

  “I’d go straight to the closest hospital or police station to find out where they took Roger. No one is going to attack me before then.”

  “Maybe when the sun is out.”

  “Vampires really can’t go out in the sun?” she blurted.

  “The killers amongst us can’t. I can.”

  “Why can some of you go out in the sun, but not others?”

  “The more a vampire kills, the stronger and weaker their corrupted soul becomes. Their physical strength increases, but they lose the ability to tolerate sunlight, holy water, crucifixes, and they become less able to cross bodies of water. Some of the legends the humans weaved over the years have a basis in fact.”

  “Fascinating,” she murmured.

  She walked swiftly beside him, her long legs keeping stride with his. Gauging his height compared to hers, she guessed he was about six inches taller than her five-eight, yet she didn’t labor to keep pace with him.

  She’d prefer not to go back to that blood-soaked scene, but she didn’t resist him either. More than anything, she didn’t want to come across one of those Savages on her own. She’d bide her time until she knew she’d be safe, and then she’d run.

  Aiden’s gaze raked her frame again. Her baggy, khaki shirt hid most of her figure, and so did her black, cargo pants, but he’d felt the lushness of her breasts and the strength in her lean body when she’d worked her way out from under him in the ambulance earlier.

  If he got the chance, he would enjoy peeling away her clothes to reveal what lay beneath. It would be better than any present on Christmas morning. The thought of it stirred his cock. He gritted his teeth as he forced aside thoughts of hearing her passionate cries. Now was not the time.

  He tilted his head as he studied her more closely. She was taking all of this amazingly well.
She could be in a state of shock, but he didn’t think so. Maggie struck him as a person who picked herself up and carried on no matter what it took for her to do so. What had her life been like to make her that way? What was it like now?

  “Do you have a boyfriend, Magdalene?” he inquired, and she shot him a look.

  “No one calls me that,” she told him again. “Everyone calls me Maggie or Mags. And why do you want to know?”

  “I’m curious.”

  “Look how well that worked out for the cat.”

  Before he could reply, a metal trash can lid clattered ahead of them, drawing his attention back to their surroundings. They’d left the warehouse district behind and entered a street lined with row houses. The scent of human food cooking, the sounds of TVs, laughter, and music drifted from the homes.

  Most of the residents of these houses had settled in for the night, but a bald, middle-aged man with a cigarette dangling from his lips emerged from one of the driveways. He cursed as he kicked the lid toward the curb. Aiden relaxed as the man’s eyes came toward them. The man nodded a greeting before plopping the trash can he’d been carrying on the curb. He picked up the lid and shoved it onto the bag poking out from the top of the can.

  Then, his gaze raked Aiden. “What happened to you?”

  “Lost a bet,” Aiden replied.

  “I guess so,” the man muttered and turned to walk back toward his house.

  A window slid open, and then a woman shouted, “You better not be smoking out there!”

  The man tossed his cigarette down and stomped it out. “Get off my back, woman!”

  Maggie chuckled. “I love Boston.”

  “Were you born here?”

  She shot him another look then decided it didn’t matter if she told him. “Yes.”

  “And your boyfriend?” He had to know how difficult it would be to win her. Was she already in love? Was she married? He glanced at her left hand but saw no rings there.

  “I’m between boyfriends.” She thought he smiled, but it was so fleeting she couldn’t be certain. “Were you born here?”

  “No. I was born in Oregon.”

  “You’re a long way from home.”

  “Oregon isn’t my home, not anymore.”

  “So where is your home, Nosferatu? A cave somewhere so you can hang upside down like a bat or in actual bat form?”

  She’d asked the question in a teasing tone, but she held her breath, afraid he would say yes.

  “I live in a house in Massachusetts, and vampires don’t shapeshift,” he said.

  That was good to know. “What about your girlfriend? Is she a vampire?”

  “No girlfriend.”

  A clammy sweat coated her skin when she realized they were getting closer to the alley where this all started. Some instinct caused her to step closer to him when they turned onto another street.

  They strode past the entrance to another alley, and Aiden stiffened beside her. He clasped her elbow and drew her so sharply against him that she staggered to the side. She opened her mouth to yell at him, but when she spotted the ambulance parked against a chain-link fence at the end of the dark alley, her words died off. No lights were on, and no sounds came from the vehicle.

  CHAPTER 14

  Maggie frowned at the ambulance, not sure what was going on. Why was it here? Where was everyone? Then it sank in that she was staring at the ambulance Glenn and Walt had been riding. The ambulance they had stuck one of those creatures in.

  “Glenn, Walt,” she breathed.

  She leapt forward so fast she yanked her arm free of Aiden’s hold before he could stop her. Her arms pumped as she raced down the alley. Skidding to a halt at the back of the ambulance, she saw the doors were cracked open and flung them wide.

  Arriving at her side, Aiden wrapped his arm around her waist and spun her out of the way before something could launch out at her.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded, squirming to break free of his hold.

  When nothing sprang out of the back, he set her on her feet but grabbed her again when she went to jump inside. Maggie spun on him. “They’re my friends!” she snapped. “Let me go!”

  “You don’t know what happened here,” he replied. “There’s a reason why the ambulance is here and not at the hospital, and it’s not a good one. You have no idea what you could be running into.”

  Maggie eased her struggle as she gazed into the back of the ambulance. The interior light illuminated the empty stretcher within. Blood coated the stretcher and the floor, but she saw no bodies or signs of a struggle. The stillness mixed with all that blood gave her the strangest sensation of having just stepped into the Twilight Zone.

  “He was eviscerated. Look at the blood he lost,” she said. “There’s no way he would have been capable of attacking Walt and Glenn.”

  He sensed Maggie wanted him to reassure her that her friends were okay, but he wouldn’t give her false hope. “You didn’t think I would heal so fast either,” he said gently. “And ten Savages jumped me in that alley. I killed two in the alley and injured this one, but only five came after me again in the ambulance. The two others either went back to the alley to clean up the mess they created with the humans, or they followed this ambulance so they could stop the ambulance before it reached a hospital.”

  He’d been the one to eviscerate the man? She didn’t know why that surprised her. She’d seen him tear the heart out of a man, but she hadn’t fully put it together that he’d also killed those other two and incapacitated this one. She did now.

  She didn’t look at Aiden as she gazed at the blood-streaked walls and floor. Her nose wrinkled at the familiar, coppery tang of blood mingled with garbage. “Why does it smell like trash?” she muttered as she pulled herself into the back.

  Aiden glanced at the nearby dumpster before focusing on Maggie again. He didn’t detect the pungent stench of a Savage nearby, but there was a faint aroma of refuse from the dumpster and the drying blood of the Savage.

  Careful to avoid stepping in the blood, Maggie made her way to the front of the ambulance. She was terrified of what she’d find there, but she couldn’t stop herself. She glanced behind her and froze when she saw Aiden was gone.

  Through the open doors, she watched two cars drive past. She didn’t breathe while she searched for Aiden. Had he left her? She should be jumping for joy, but she didn’t feel any joy.

  When one of the ambulance’s front doors opened, she almost shrieked as she spun toward the front. She bit back her cry as the ambulance sagged and Aiden’s head appeared between the seats. His blood-streaked face was a welcome relief.

  “Stay back there. You don’t want to see this,” he said to her.

  “No, I don’t, but I have to.”

  She covered the remaining distance between her and the cab in one step. Two bodies were in the front seats. Tears burned her eyes, and her hand flew to her throat when she identified them. Walt leaned against the passenger window, his glazed eyes open and his throat torn out.

  Her gaze turned to where Glenn lay slumped over the wheel. She couldn’t see his face, but gashes sliced his throat and blood stuck his khaki shirt to his neck. Roger would be devastated when he learned of Glenn’s death. They may not work together anymore, but Glenn was Roger’s best friend. Both divorced, they bowled on Monday nights, went to baseball games every summer, and argued politics.

  She’d never seen Roger cry before, but she knew he would cry for Glenn. Roger was the closest she’d ever come to a father figure in her life, and the idea of anyone hurting him made her itch to claw their eyes out. Glenn and Walt had dedicated their lives to helping others and some monster had killed them. They’d deserved so much better than this.

  Lifting her gaze, she met Aiden’s over Glenn’s back. “Whoever did this, can’t be allowed to live.”

  “They won’t be,” he promised, hating the sheen of tears in her eyes.

  “I can use the radio, call for help, and wait for it to arrive,” sh
e told him. “They’ll take me to safety.”

  “I can’t be here when they arrive, and I’m not leaving you.”

  She had expected as much, and she wasn’t up for arguing right now. “The ambulance has a GPS, but I can’t leave them here like this until they’re noted as missing and located.”

  “We have to,” Aiden replied. “If you use the radio to call someone and aren’t here when help arrives, you could become a suspect. It’s unlikely that anything will stick to you, but is it a chance you’re willing to take?”

  Her gaze fell to Walt and Glenn again before she bowed her head. “No,” she whispered.

  She turned away from him and started back. Dropping down from the driver’s side, Aiden rushed around to meet her before she could climb out of the ambulance. Maggie’s eyes were dry when they met his.

  Aiden wiped off the handles she’d touched when she opened the back doors. Even if they pulled his prints, they weren’t on file. Besides, the police would never be able to locate or keep him imprisoned for long if they were somehow lucky enough to stumble across him.

  “Did you touch anything inside?” he asked.

  “No,” she replied. “We have to let someone know they’re here. They can’t stay in this alley. They deserve better,” she said.

  He rested his hand on her arm to draw her closer. “We’ll call someone as soon as we can, but we have to go.”

  • • •

  Trudging along beside Aiden, Maggie kept her head down as she tried to process everything that had happened tonight. Exhaustion tugged at her; her shoulders hunched up as the memory of Glenn and Walt dead in that ambulance flared back to life.

  She’d never lived under the delusion life was fair, but she loathed that it was sometimes a cruel bitch with razor-sharp claws, who laughed as she sliced you open.

  Maggie could hear the cruel laughter of life bouncing around her skull now.