Chapter Twenty-Seven
The attack had come out of nowhere, killing two guards before the others sounded the alarm. By the time Connor made it to the gate, five of his people were already dead, including one human who had been donating blood to a guard. It was a miracle they hadn’t lost more people. He was surprised they’d been able to push the attackers back. Something was off about the whole thing. It wasn’t just the mass attack. It was the organization of the turned vampires. Then there was the strangeness of the retreat. Until then, he hadn’t thought about how unusual it was that the turned vamps at Las Trampas had fled. In general, they fought until they won or died. They just didn’t have the reasoning skills to know when it was time to give up.
His clothes were bloody, and the adrenaline running through his veins made it hard to tell if any of it was his own. As a vampire, he had an extremely high pain tolerance, which was part of what had made born vampires so appealing as blood whores in the beginning. As much as he wanted to deny that part of his nature, he enjoyed the violence on some level. He always had. His mother insisted they were still human, just infected with a virus, but when he saw how easy it was for him to kill, he questioned that. Then again, humans had been willing to slaughter millions of their own kind, so maybe humans were just better at hiding that part of their nature most of the time.
They were loading up those with serious injuries to take to the hospital. It was still risky to travel the roads because they had no idea how many of the turned vampires might be waiting to ambush them, but they had little choice in the matter. Heavily armed guards would take the badly wounded to the hospital.
His leadership council gathered around him. Carla was limping, but other than that, they were all doing okay.
“Clean up, drink a bag of blood, and then meet me at my house,” he ordered. “We have got to figure out what’s up with these increased attacks. Also, these turned vampires are different. They’re more like the ones I ran into with Raven at Las Trampas. They’re too organized.” Looking around, he saw the hunger in everyone’s eyes. He felt it, too. The need to feed after fighting was wreaking havoc on all their self-control. “On second thought, drink the blood first.”
“Should we try to get Muriel moved to the hospital before the baby comes?” Carla asked.
“Who’s with her?” Connor asked.
“Norah,” Carla said.
“And Raven is still there?” Connor asked slowly. Having his old lover hanging out with Raven couldn’t be good for him. He’d needed to introduce them soon. It wasn’t fair to Norah that he hadn’t, but he’d been hoping to explain his relationship to Raven first. Then he decided it was ridiculous to worry about Raven’s reaction she wasn’t likely to be jealous. It wasn’t like she was in love with him.
Why that thought bothered him, he didn’t know. Raven hadn’t denied him access to her body since their first time together. Unless he’d wanted her to deny him so he could conquer her. She was down for trying any sexual fantasy he suggested, and he was a very creative man. She came to his bed, or the kitchen counter, or the floor in the living room, or the shower. He needed to stop thinking about sex or he’d be racing over to fuck her while he was covered in blood. The problem was she made sure to slip out of his bed every night. She denied him the intimacy of sleeping with her. It had never mattered with a woman before. With Raven, he wanted her in his arms every night. They’d stayed that way the first night, but he’d been in her room, so she’d had nowhere to escape to. Part of him wanted to order her to move into his room, but he’d already taken enough of her freedom. Also, this strong desire to cuddle made him wonder when he’d suddenly grown a vagina.
Carla snapped her fingers in front of his face. “You’re spacing out again. It’s been happening a lot since Raven learned what you sound like in bed.”
He gave her an impatient look. “If there was a problem with the birth, Norah would’ve sent me a message by now. I think it’s safe to assume things are going fine. I don’t want to move Muriel until things are more stable.”
They all headed back to their own homes. Connor was a little jealous of the way Shelby and Carla walked off hand in hand. He’d never been jealous of them before. Other than Norah, he’d never wanted anything more than casual sex with near strangers. He’d never brought any of those women to his house because he wanted to avoid having them try to spend the night. He’d never been with the same woman more than a couple of times to avoid giving her the wrong idea. He’d always used protection. With Raven, he seemed to forget all the rules he had regarding sex.
Connor had a hard time resisting the temptation to go to Jack’s house first. He didn’t want a cold bag of blood. He wanted Raven’s blood. He wanted Raven’s body. In his current frame of mind, he knew that was a bad idea, but it didn’t lessen his desire any. He began to wonder if he should see if she could stay somewhere else for the night. Some space might help him get his head on straight.
Fang sensed his unease the moment Connor walked into the house and came to his side with a whine. Connor reached down and patted the wolf. Fang sniffed his bloody arm with distaste. Wolves didn’t seem to like undead blood. They’d fight them out of their territory but they didn’t eat them. Not that Connor could blame them.
“I know,” he said with a laugh, “I’m not fond of the stuff myself. I think I’ll shower before I eat. You must be getting hungry, too.”
To Connor, the turned vampires reeked of decay, and it turned his stomach. He wasn’t sure what it was that caused the smell. As near as he could tell, they weren’t actually decomposing. Then again, they were dead for three days before they awoke undead, so some decomposition probably occurred then.
Fang whined his agreement and Connor decided to pull out some meat for the wolf before he showered. It was the only way he’d be able to shower without Fang trying to climb in with him, and he didn’t feel like towel drying Fang. The wolf liked showers, anyway, and when he sensed something was bothering Connor, he stuck close. Since the day he’d met Fang, Connor could understand the meaning behind the wolf’s gestures and the sounds he made. Fang considered Connor part of his pack, and pack found comfort from each other. For that reason, each night when Raven left Connor’s bed Fang climbed in. Connor found the wolf’s presence soothing, and he’d even gotten used to having wolf fur on everything.
After showering, he dropped his clothes into the washing machine. Apparently, he hadn’t been injured other than some nasty bruises. He sent a quick message to Norah asking about Muriel and learned Jack had a son. He assured her they would get Muriel and the baby to the hospital as soon as it was safe to transport them.
Connor felt a strange twinge of jealousy. It wasn’t something he could ever hope for with Raven after how their relationship had started. She couldn’t love him. At least, he had her in some way, and she couldn’t leave. She’d even admitted she didn’t want to leave him. That had to be a good thing.
When he came downstairs, he found Simon sitting on his sofa with his head leaned back and his eyes closed. “It’s a good thing you bonded her to you,” Simon stated quietly.
Connor went to the kitchen and poured two bags of blood into glasses. He handed one to Simon, who took it without a word. He sat down across from Simon and drained his glass before responding. “Yes, the blood bond is much easier than the collar, and it prevents her from trying to escape.”
Simon laughed and sat up to look at Connor. “You can’t be that stupid, Con. She wouldn’t try to escape. I suppose it’s a bad thing for me you’re bonded to her.”
“Yeah, it must suck to have my power base more secure,” Connor replied bitterly.
“If she wasn’t bonded to you,” Simon began softly, “I would take her from you, but not for the power. She is abso-fucking-lutely amazing.”
Connor felt his temper flare, and he heard Fang’s rumbling growl from his side. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn well what it means,” Simon told him. “I more than want her, I
like her a lot. Don’t screw this up or I will do whatever it takes to break the blood bond between you. We’re both to blame for her old life being taken from her. Make damn sure you give her a happy one here.”
Connor stared in stunned silence for a long moment before nodding. “What the hell happened between us, Si?”
“We disagree on what’s best for our people, and we both care enough to fight for them,” Simon replied with a shrug.
“Raven’s part human. All wood nymphs are,” Connor pointed out. “How can you want her and hate all humans?”
“You don’t get it,” Simon complained with a frustrated sigh. “You think this is about me hating humans, but it’s not. I get why you’d think that. I mean, Ian does hate them, and I side more with him than I do with you. Hell, I fully get why he hates humans, even if I think it’s making him dangerous to us. I don’t trust most humans. How can I after what they did to us? It doesn’t mean I hate them. Despite the image I put off, do you really think I’m abusing the humans we have here?”
Connor wasn’t sure how to respond. He knew Simon was capable of cruelty. He could still picture that mother and her children in the cage. Simon had been cool and aloof. Then again, Connor had worked hard to look that way, as well. He just didn’t know what to think of his friend anymore. Raven, who had mostly seen cruelty in Simon, seemed to trust him. Connor also knew Simon usually fed from donor humans, and no one had ever complained about their treatment with him.
“Do you think I’m going to try to force myself on her?” Simon asked. His voice had dropped to a threatening rumble.
Connor shook his head. “I don’t want to believe that about you, but you’ve changed. I get that things were harder on you as a kid.”
“Don’t!” Simon cut him off. “I don’t want your pity, and don’t include me in anymore of your pillow talk.”
Connor was saved from having to respond by Carla, Shelby, and Ian’s arrival.
“Good news!” Carla chirped. She was still limping, but it didn’t look serious. “They caught a couple of the turned vampires. Maybe we can get some answers from them.”
“What bothers me most is the fact that we might be able to get some answers from them,” Connor admitted. “This whole thing doesn’t make sense. We’ve had too many attacks from the turned vampires recently. Why are they suddenly targeting us? We aren’t a good food source for them. Sure, we have humans here, but they’ve never been organized enough for these types of attacks before. It would also be easier to get to the humans in the human settlements. It makes me think they’re getting help and possibly taking orders from someone in the human camp or ours.” With that he shook his head.
“Wouldn’t I be the most likely suspect for traitor?” Ian asked casually.
Connor waved that off. “You’d betray me in a heartbeat, but only if you thought you were doing what was good for our people. You wouldn’t risk the casualties we’ve had from these attacks.”
“Always the smart one,” Ian muttered.
“You can go with me to question the turned vampires,” he told Simon. It was smart. Then those loyal to Simon couldn’t claim things were being hidden from them. He was tempted to bring Ian, but he needed the vampires alive long enough to talk, and Ian was unpredictable.
“Do we have anyone who’s been acting odd? Anyone who’s not happy with the way things are?” Connor asked.
“We always have people who aren’t happy—vampire and human,” Shelby replied. “I’m not sure anyone is acting more disgruntled than usual. Of course, I don’t know everyone.”
“This kind of resentment may have been building for a long time,” Carla added. “They may have been planning this for months or even years, so their behavior won’t stand out. Of course, it may be a human settlement behind this.”
“I’m inclined to think the human settlements aren’t behind it,” Connor said.
“Why?” Ian asked. “Humans are too humane to slaughter people?”
It was Simon who answered. “I agree with Connor on this one. First, they just don’t have the resources for more than small attacks. Second, Raven and Muriel have both made it clear the human settlements don’t know there’s any difference between us and turned vampires. Why would they ally themselves with them to destroy us? I know Raven didn’t have contact with all the settlements, but I think it’s safe to assume the others are just as closed off from the world. The exception is Treasure Island, but they’re gaining too much from their alliance with us to risk breaking it.”
Ian looked pissed at Simon for agreeing with Connor, but after some thought his face relaxed, and he nodded. “That makes sense.”
“We should probably put everyone on lockdown here until this is cleared up. Only necessary trips into the outlying communities or business district,” Simon suggested.
Connor shook his head. “I don’t want to turn this into a prison for the people who live here. I agree we should warn people of the dangers of being out on the roads and discourage them from leaving, but the idea of telling them they can’t leave seems wrong. We’ll offer to have teams bring in any supplies to discourage people from leaving.”
Simon snorted. “Why am I not surprised? People will die if we don’t take drastic measures. They can survive with limited freedom for a short time if it means saving lives.”
“This isn’t up for discussion,” Connor stated. He knew people would be safer if he took Simon’s advice. He also knew he’d probably lose his mind if he were told he couldn’t leave. Many others in the settlement had also started their lives with no freedom, so taking it away now could easily lead to more unrest.
“Fine,” Simon snapped as he rose from the sofa. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning to question the captives. Or maybe we can bake them cookies. Why don’t we get together tonight and knit them pretty sweaters?”
“I’ll need three people to accompany Jack and Muriel to the hospital,” Connor continued, ignoring Si. He wasn’t in the mood to spar with him or deal with his attitude.
There was a hesitant knock at the door, and Connor knew right away it was Raven. He started to feel his temper rise at the idea of her walking home alone with everything going on.
“I guess it’s a good thing you’re already keeping her prisoner,” Simon said with a smirk.
Connor turned to him, hand still on the front door. Some of his anger faded when he heard Norah’s voice and realized Raven hadn’t walked alone.
“Shut up!” Connor practically growled as he stepped away from the door and took a menacing step toward Simon.
“When she’s mine, I’ll keep her naked and tied to my bed most of the day.” Simon continued taunting him. “I say when because we both know you don’t have the balls to keep her.”
Carla snorted. “Right, I’m sure she’d just love to spend her days tied to your bed, Si.”
“Oh, I can guarantee I’d make her like it very much. I would spend hours making sure she was more than happy being tied to my bed.”
Connor launched himself at Simon and knocked him to the ground.
“That is enough!” Raven shouted.
Connor’s fist froze in mid-air and then dropped to his side.
Raven looked seriously pissed off. Her hands were on her hips, and she was tapping one foot on the ground as she waited for them to stand. First, she pointed a finger at Simon. “You, stop harassing Connor. It’s been a rough night for everyone, and this isn’t helping matters. You need to work together, not pretend you want to take me away to get under his skin.”
“He’s not pretending,” Connor muttered, and she glared at him.
“He’s right,” Simon told her. “Do you want to know what I’d do to you while you were tied to my bed?”
“No!” Raven replied quickly, but then admitted. “Well, yes, a little but we are so not going there.”
“To my bed?” Simon asked innocently, which made Connor practically growl.
“Stop flirting with him and go upstairs, Raven,�
� Connor ground out.
Raven ignored Simon’s question and stalked up to Connor. She jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “And you are acting like a complete ass.”
Connor caught her hand. “Don’t speak to me in that tone, Raven,” he warned her quietly. “You remember what we talked about, don’t you? It has been a rough day, and you don’t want to push me right now.”
“It has been a rough day for me, too, and I come back here to be accused of flirting and treated like some toy you two are fighting over? Fuck you, Connor!” Her open hand connected with his cheek, the sound echoing through the room.
There were gasps followed by stunned silence. Even Raven appeared shocked by her own actions. Connor saw the moment she remembered what he’d said about talking to him with disrespect in front of his people. She started to back away from him.
“Everyone out,” Connor commanded without taking his eyes off Raven.
Simon stepped between them. “You don’t have to do this, Con. You don’t need to prove you’re the big scary leader to me. I know this is for my benefit. I’m asking you not to hurt her.”
Ian nodded and moved to Simon’s side. “Si’s right. We’ve all grown fond of the nymph.”
Connor’s eyes widened in surprise. “Since when did you join the Raven fan club?”
Ian shrugged. “Since she yelled at me at the school. I like her even more after seeing her slap you. She reminds me of Kate.” Then he looked at Raven and added softly. “Kate was my wife, and she had quite a temper.”
There was a beat of stunned silence as everyone absorbed Ian’s words. Finally, Connor spoke. “I’m not going to beat her, if that’s what you’re all worried about. Ian, take Norah home, please.”
Ian nodded, and they all got up to leave.
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