His teeth flashed in the dim light of her beam before he turned away from her. “Bossy little thing.”
She appreciated he didn’t ask if she was okay again, didn’t ask what happened. He merely continued one step at a time. She concentrated on those steps until the constriction in her chest eased and she found herself breathing normally once more.
“Why did they establish themselves here?” she asked. “It doesn’t look safe.”
“That’s why they did. No one comes here.”
“That’s because they’re not insane.”
“Terror and brutality often make us do things we never believed ourselves capable of doing.”
“So true,” Vicky murmured.
Before her imprisonment, she hadn’t seen herself as strong or self-reliant. She would never have believed she could spend an hour without company, her phone, electricity, and running water. While in captivity, she’d drawn on reserves of strength she’d never known she possessed to endure the degradation and agony those vampires inflicted on her. Now, some days, she forgot to take her phone with her, and she often sat with only herself for company.
“Sister asked them to join us, but they declined. They only trust each other. It’s me, Duncan!” he called out again.
Something scraped in the dark ahead as a bead of water landed on Vicky’s cheek, causing her to jump. She wiped the water away as images of cockroaches skittering through the darkness and snakes filled her mind.
There are no snakes here, she told herself, but now that the picture was in her mind, she couldn’t rid herself of the idea of slithering serpents hanging above her. One of them would uncoil to run its body across her face before kissing her lips with its tongue.
Despite her resolution not to look, her beam shot to the ceiling again. The water seeped through the concrete walls at a more rapid rate, but there were no snakes. She heaved a sigh of relief. She’d prefer thousands of pounds of ocean water burying her than one frigging snake anywhere near her.
“It’s Duncan!” he called again, and his flashlight illuminated a pale face when it emerged from the shadows.
Vicky forgot all about water and snakes as sunken blue eyes gazed out from a face made gaunt by starvation. The woman’s cheekbones, poking like blades through her pale skin, made her eyes owl-like as they blinked against the flashlight. When she threw up a hand to block the beam, Vicky hastily directed her light behind her.
Once her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, Vicky saw the woman kneeling in the shadows. Though the face looked far from youthful, she suspected the woman was only in her twenties. Two more heads appeared behind the woman; each was as emaciated as the first.
“I’m Vicky,” she greeted and stepped toward them. Two of the women watched her every move; the other one scurried into the shadows. The first woman’s hand fell to the knife strapped to her side. “I came to ask you a couple of questions if you don’t mind?”
“About what?” the first face asked. She had the voice of a woman three times her age who had chain-smoked unfiltered cigarettes for fifty years. Vicky suspected the raspy tone was more from lack of water than a nicotine addiction.
“Have you noticed anything different in these tunnels? Have you heard anything unusual?” Vicky inquired.
The two women exchanged a glance. Their blue eyes and facial structure were similar enough that Vicky suspected they were sisters; the third one was most likely family too. She blinked away the tears burning her eyes at the thought of any of her sisters being so scared, or living in a place like this.
She’d like to say it was impossible, that a fate like this would never happen to a member of her family, but it had happened already, to her.
Not too long ago, she hadn’t looked much better than these women. The fact she was a vampire and been given time to heal and feed had bounced her back to her old form, but these women wouldn’t be so fortunate.
“We don’t go out often,” the second woman replied in a voice as dry as a worm baking on a sidewalk in July.
“We don’t talk with others down here; we avoid them,” the third one whispered from the shadows.
Vicky crept closer to them.
Slick. The first woman’s blade slid free of its holster.
Vicky stopped ten feet away and dipped into her pocket. She’d made sure to bring enough money to give those they encountered something for their help.
Turning, she kept her back to the women as she removed three fifty-dollar bills, repocketed the money and faced them. She wasn’t concerned that they, or anyone else down here, would jump her for her money; she could handle any human and, after all her training, more than her fair share of vampires. However, she couldn’t flash a bunch of money around those who had so little.
Kneeling, she placed the money on the ground. “Thank you for your help.”
The third one’s face reemerged from the shadows. Her blue eyes matched those of her sisters’.
“Duncan told me Sister offered you a place to stay. You should go. They’ll protect and feed you. They’re good people, and the children could always use more love, so could you. I know you’re afraid, but it’s not safe here, and there is always safety in numbers, especially in this world,” Vicky said.
Pushing the money toward them, Vicky rose and walked over to rejoin Duncan. From behind her, she heard one of the women scurry forward to claim the money. She hoped they would heed her words, but she doubted it.
She fell into step beside Duncan as they made their way through the tunnels and on toward the next stop on their route.
CHAPTER 21
“You have a hot date?” Declan asked when Nathan rechecked his phone on their way from one club to another.
“No,” Nathan replied and returned his phone to his pocket.
He could feel Asher’s eyes burning into him from the back seat, but Nathan steadfastly ignored his friend as he stared out the windshield. Declan glanced at him from where he sat in the driver’s seat, his brow furrowed.
“Going to the clubs is getting us nowhere,” he said to distract Declan and Asher from their inspection of him.
Vicky is underground; he reminded himself. There is no cell service in the sewers.
“Any better ideas, loverboy?” Lucien drawled.
“Yeah, you can go fuck yourself,” Nathan retorted.
Lucien smirked, making it clear he’d known what Nathan was attempting to do with the others and wasn’t having it.
“Any ideas?” Asher asked.
Nathan didn’t have any. From the report he’d received this morning from those who had hunted last night, some of his men had gone with Killean and Saxon to speak with the homeless again, while Ronan and some vampire trainees hit a few vamp bars with no new word.
“How could a vampire, who was a thorn in all our sides, just disappear?” Nathan muttered.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out. On the screen, he saw Vicky’s name and the message: All is good. No luck so far. Bad reception. Stay safe. Talk when I’m above ground.
He didn’t acknowledge Declan’s questioning glance when he typed a response and returned his phone to his pocket.
“The police reports were checked four days ago,” he murmured. Some of the vamps went to the police stations at night, and using their mind control abilities, they were able to learn more from the police reports than the newspapers revealed.
“No big spikes in missing people or murders anywhere in the surrounding area,” Lucien said.
“Maybe we should start expanding the search into Pennsylvania,” Asher suggested.
For now, their search consisted of New England and New York, but it was time to branch out.
“I’m prepared to search the entire continent if it gets us a lead,” Lucien said.
Declan pulled into the lot across the street from the next club and parked the car. Opening the door, Nathan stepped into the brisk April night and inhaled the crisp air. His nose twitched when he detected the faint hint
of garbage.
“Do you smell that?” Asher asked when he stepped out of the car to stand beside him.
“Yes,” Nathan replied.
“Dumpster?” Asher asked.
“No, it’s too strong for a dumpster,” Declan said and closed his door. “And it’s coming from behind those buildings.”
They all turned to look at the line of restaurants, stores, and other assorted businesses beyond the parking lot. They were all closed for the night. Nathan sniffed the air again and listened for something out of the ordinary, but all he heard was the muffled thump of music from the club across the street.
“Let’s go,” Lucien said.
• • •
Vicky rubbed her hands together to ease the chill from them and leaned against the wall while Duncan conversed with the man they discovered meandering the tunnels. The man wasn’t a member of any group down here; he’d drifted inside while searching for a warm, safe place to spend the night.
Duncan didn’t tell him where to go, or about any of the other groups. If the man discovered one, it would be up to them if they welcomed or turned him away. When they finished speaking, Vicky fell into step beside Duncan again.
She was beginning to feel like the hamster running pointlessly on its wheel with no end in sight.
“How many groups are down here?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Duncan said. “I know of twenty, but there are probably more. They’re all spread out, and I haven’t explored all the tunnels.”
They’d met four of the twenty between last night and tonight and were heading toward the fifth. Her thoughts turned to Nathan. Was he okay? She knew he was trained to destroy Savages, but what if something went wrong tonight? He was strong, but he was mortal.
The knowledge made her fangs prick as the insidious urge to change him slid through her. I’m in deep shit.
“Want to call it quits for the night?” Duncan asked.
“No, we’ll go to the next group and see what they know first. If we learn nothing, we’ll call it quits and start again tomorrow night.”
• • •
They found eight Savages standing in a small parking lot behind the grouping of shops. Standing next to a pizza place, the four of them remained hidden in the shadows of the brick building while they surveyed their enemies. The Savage’s heads were bent close together as they talked.
“Keep at least one alive for questioning,” Lucien whispered.
“Let’s go,” Nathan said.
Reaching into his inner pocket, Nathan pulled out a stake before sliding away from the building. He loped through the shadows on the outskirts of the lot until he was behind the Savages, but still fifty feet away and hidden from his enemies. As much as some hostility remained between the hunters and the Defenders, they’d hunted together often enough to know the moves the others would make without having to formulate a plan.
Nathan felt primed for a kill as adrenaline coursed through his body. He always enjoyed a good battle, but tonight he felt more keyed up than usual with his concern for Vicky, his frustration over not being able to decide his future, and his inability to locate Joseph. He needed a release for it all, and these bastards would be it.
The four of them spread out to circle the Savages before edging closer to them. Racing forward, Nathan struck first as he came up behind a Savage and drove his stake through its heart before the vamp realized he was there. The Savage released a gurgled cry, and its body bowed out as it tried uselessly to pull away from the weapon.
The vamp standing closest to its falling comrade lunged at Nathan, but Declan loomed up behind the Savage and snapped its neck. Across the way, Lucien staked another one while Asher fired a bolt into the heart of a fourth.
Two of them turned to run, but Nathan blocked their escape. One of the monsters lowered its shoulder and barreled at him. The vamp came ever closer, closing the distance until they were only feet apart, then inches.
Nathan waited until the last second before moving to the side, clasping his hands together, and smashing them onto the back of the Savage. The creature’s spine broke with an audible crack before it face-planted onto the asphalt.
The Savage tried to claw its way forward, but Nathan stepped on its back to keep it restrained for later. When the Savage shrieked, Nathan drew back his fist and delivered a knockout blow to the creature’s temple. The vamp collapsed.
Turning, he watched as Asher and Lucien dispatched two more. Declan sat on the back of another vamp, his legs crossed, and his foot kicking in the air as he punched numbers into his phone.
“We need a pick up for two of them,” Declan said to someone through the phone while Lucien started binding the wrists and ankles of the one Declan sat on.
Asher came over to help Nathan with his captive as Declan hung up. “Killean’s on his way to get them,” Declan said.
When he finished binding the vamp, Lucien stalked back and forth behind the buildings, studying their exterior. “There’s no cameras.”
“That’s probably why they gathered here,” Asher said.
Nathan turned his attention to the Savage beneath him. Usually, once a battle was over, his body settled into a regular rhythm again, but now he felt primed to hunt and kill more than before this started. The bloodthirstiness thrumming continuously through his veins was a sensation he wasn’t used to. He wanted more death; he craved….
Vicky, he realized with a start.
He wanted to see her, to taste and smell her, to sink himself inside her, and experience the powerful release she brought him as well as the strange sense of calm she gave him.
His fingers dug into his palms as he sought to keep himself restrained. He felt wild in a way he never had before and not only was Vicky the cause, but she was also the cure.
It took him a few minutes to regain control, and by the time Killean pulled behind the buildings with a van and they loaded their prisoners into the back of the vehicle, he felt more stable.
Both the Savages had regained consciousness and were glaring at them from blood red eyes.
“I’m going to ride with Killean,” Declan said and climbed into the van.
Lucien closed the doors behind him and slapped his hand against them. Red taillights illuminated the night as Killean shifted into drive and pulled away.
“I’ll take you back to your car,” Lucien said to Nathan. “You can follow me over to the prison for the questioning.”
CHAPTER 22
The sky was showing the first hint of dawn when Nathan emerged from the prison Ronan recently purchased to house the Savages they captured. The squat, concrete building had been an old county prison until it shut down fifteen years ago. After buying it, Ronan upgraded the security system and renovated the building to ensure it could hold vampires.
Asher and Killean would stay for the day to see if they could get any information out of the Savages. So far, neither of their captives were speaking. Declan had left an hour ago, and Ronan would be arriving soon.
Nathan had to get back to the stronghold, but first, he wanted to speak with Vicky.
Removing his phone from his pocket, he pulled up the message she sent him an hour ago. I’m done playing Ninja Turtle for the night. Need a shower. I know you’re imagining it now. ;) Hope your night is going well.
Her in the shower did bring up pleasant mental images as he walked toward his truck. He hit send on his phone, and she answered on the second ring.
“Hello,” she said in a breathy voice that made his pulse quicken.
He’d only called to check on her, but he couldn’t return to the stronghold without seeing her first. “What are you doing?” he asked as he opened the door to his truck and slid inside.
“What would you like me to be doing?”
More mental images flooded his mind as he started the truck. “Lying in bed, waiting for me.”
She gave a throaty laugh. “Then your wish is my command.”
“I’ll be there soon.”
“Where are you?”
“Your apartment, and I’m wearing my black lingerie. My breasts look amazing in it too.”
Nathan groaned as all the blood left his brain and flooded into his groin. “On my way.”
“You better hurry or I’m going to start and finish myself.”
Before he could reply, she hung up, and he hit the gas.
• • •
The scent of her arousal hit him the second he stepped into the apartment. Locking the door, he yanked off his boots and socks before walking down the hall toward her. When he stepped into the small bedroom, the vision of her waiting for him was like a blow to the gut. He froze before slumping against the doorframe.
Lying on the air mattress, the black lingerie she wore lifted her breasts while exposing her nipples and the silver hoops in them. Holding Nathan’s gaze, she cupped one of her breasts and ran her thumb over a hard, mouthwatering bud. When her hand slid down her flat belly, he realized she had one of his shirts in the middle of her breasts and down between her legs.
“You took too long,” she murmured. “The scent of you was driving me crazy.”
She lifted the shirt and her legs parted to reveal her sex to him; she was already wet, and today she wore no underwear. Lowering her head, she buried her nose in his shirt and inhaled his fragrance; moaning, her hand dipped between her legs and rubbed her clit.
“It took all I had to keep myself restrained from easing my need for you,” she continued.
“Don’t,” he said.
A wicked smile played across her lips as she ran her thumb over her nipple again. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t restrain yourself. I want to watch you fuck yourself.”
Her heart hammered as excitement flooded her. “I can do that,” she told him as she stroked herself again, “on one condition.”
“And what is that?” Nathan’s gaze followed her every move. He’d never seen anything as tantalizing as her spread out before him, and he realized his lust for her was bordering on obsession. His body ached for release, but he craved seeing this.
Bound by Vengeance (The Alliance, Book 2) Page 13