The Vampire's Favorite

by V. R. Cumming

  Please, God, no.

  It was all I could think as I stumbled through the entrance and skidded to a stop in the surreally normal living room.

  Not so much as a hair was out of place. No furniture was overturned. Pillows were arranged in an unwavering regiment along the immaculately clean sofa. Fuck. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere, that I could tell. It was hardly the picture of life-threatening struggle I’d dreamed up between the car and the stoop.

  Bodies pushed past me into the warm interior, jostling me out of my disbelieving stupor as they spread out into the mid-sized home, some up stairs staggered in a diagonal slash along the far wall, others through a door tucked beneath the staircase.

  Bon disappeared through a swinging door to the right, and staggered back out almost immediately, nearly doubled over as he retched into the carpet.

  My heart dropped into my gut. What the fuck made a pet gag, even a young one like Bon?

  Eric calmly stepped around him, murmuring something too low for me to catch as he passed, and paused in the doorway Bon had just exited, his hand flat against the shiny, white door. He shuddered once, hard, and our bond blackened and froze, a pointed spear jabbing into my mind.

  I flinched against the agonizing intrusion. Fuck, that hurt, whatever Eric was doing. And whatever it was, it was bad. Dread crept over me, sucking out the hope I’d clung to since hearing Di’s confession, and I nearly sagged to my knees on the too clean, slate blue carpeting.

  Anna Grace, my mind whispered, and Eric’s echoed my despair, weaving in and around the bond stretched tightly between us.

  Outside, a single howl arose, a hollow plea to an unseeing god.

  One by one, the members of our company filed back into the living room, Remy and Paulo in the lead. They gathered in a half circle facing Eric, ten feet away from him, as if the icy buffer sifting through his bond with me shielded him from their presence.

  I forced one leg to move, then the other, and stumbled through the house, certain with every step that I’d never be able to take another. The scent of spilled blood strengthened with each jagged move, sickening in its pervasiveness. Halfway there, an eternity of shuffling steps, seemed like, an arm brushed against mine accompanied by fragrant pine tinged with an undertone of loamy, black earth.

  I draped an arm around Tangi’s muscled shoulders, and together, we limped toward Eric. He turned and held out a hand to us, and beyond him, I finally saw what had frozen his heart.

  Chapter Thirty

  Tangi sucked in a short breath. To his credit, he didn’t sway or gag or vomit in the face of the charnel gore splashed across what had once been a pristine kitchen, sprayed outward around a pile of crudely dismembered limbs encased in blood soaked clothing. Entrails spiraled across the gruesome display onto the floor, spilling fecal matter. Its stink was a rotten layer overwhelmed by the putrid heat of coagulating viscera.

  Tangi nudged my arm and pointed to the red-streaked stove, where a woman’s head had been propped upright, its lifeless features permanently gaping in terror at whatever she’d witnessed. What was left of the neck appeared to have been seared by the eye it rested on.

  I covered my nose with one hand, unwilling to risk catching a whiff of burnt flesh mingling with shit and overripe blood. Fuck that. A pet could only take so much, and I’d about reached my limit.

  Above the monument to Oriana’s viciousness, scarlet letters were smeared in an uneven scrawl across the yellow pine cabinets. The fate of all betrayers. I inhaled, nearly choked on the reeking air entering my lungs. Fuckers had left a message for us. Maybe they thought their little tableau would scare us into rethinking coming after that harpy bitch.

  All it did was piss me off.

  Eric shifted back toward the kitchen, his gaze on the once-white tile. Small, bare feet had tracked blood along the outer edges of the pile of what had once been a woman, some smeared as if whoever had made them had slipped through the remains.

  White hot anger flashed over me, surging into my bonds with Eric and Tangi, melting Eric’s arctic rage. They’d made her watch. They’d held that woman down and sawed her off limbs while she was still alive, judging by the spray of blood, and they’d made my baby sister watch.

  I was going to kill every single fucking one of the people responsible for this tragedy, every pet, every vampire, every goddamn human who’d had a hand in it. No one would escape my justice, no one.

  Eric slowly turned around, his eyes as dark as midnight, and accord reverberated through our now-pliable bond. Not again.

  Never again, I agreed. We were going to rescue Anna Grace and end Oriana’s reign of terror in this region, and God help anybody standing in our way.

  “We need to leave.”

  I whirled on the low, male voice, searching for the speaker in the crowd of uneasy vampires and pets gathered in the dead woman’s living room.

  Landis bowed his head under the weight of my fury. “If we leave now, we can still catch them before the sun sets.”

  “Whoever did this,” Remy said, “has had ample time to return to Oriana with her prize.”

  Her prize. My sister. “Then the sooner we leave, the sooner we can deal with her.”

  Remy’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Do you think Oriana is so easily disposed of? We’ve tried for years to rid ourselves of her plague, spent decades ferreting out her weaknesses and exploiting them, to no avail.”

  “So, what? We should just leave Anna Grace to rot?” The words spewed out of me, bouncing off the men frozen like statues around Remy. “She’s a little kid, a fucking innocent. I’m not letting Fen do to her what he did to Tangi, and you’re a goddamn coward if you won’t help me get her back.”

  Paolo spat out an obscenity in some language I didn’t recognize. “Watch your tongue, pet.”

  Remy held out a hand, quieting his favorite. “Paolo, please.”

  “It’s not cowardly to admit when you’re outgunned.”

  “No, my pet, it’s not, but that was not my point.” Remy blew out a shuddering sigh, and like so many of us, lowered his gaze to the sterile floor away from the desecrated remains adorning the kitchen. “Oriana is too strong to be eliminated without a carefully considered plan. If we strike before we’re ready, we stand a greater chance of defeat than victory.”

  “What are we waiting for?” I demanded. “Your and Trilly’s pets are gathering outside of Minneapolis now, waiting for the go. The wolves are behind us one hundred percent, and—”

  “Marco.”

  The single word dropped into our argument like a detonated landmine, exploding the tension in the room into tiny, inescapable shrapnel.

  “Marco,” Eric repeated quietly, “is waiting for us in a private hangar at the airport in St. Paul. He brought half a dozen pets with him, pets trained in wartime aggression.”

  The words were stilted, forced. I glanced at my lover, one eyebrow raised.

  Eric lifted one slender shoulder, then let it fall. “His words.”

  Remy’s posture relaxed, and when he looked up, he was smiling. A small smile, yeah, but still a smile. “I haven’t seen Marco in a very long time.”

  “He hasn’t changed a bit,” I said drily, a wager I’d make any day of the week. The man was a fucking bastion in the South, like an old-fashioned lamp forever stuck to the wall in your favorite room, but sexier.

  Quiet laughter echoed in my mind, underscored by a wealth of humor, and I cringed. Christ. I’d forgotten Marco could hear petlet me, too, now that we were within spitting distance of each other. I had a funny feeling I was going to pay for the old-fashioned jibe. Later, when we’d sorted out this mess and gotten Anna Grace back safe and sound, or as sound as a kid could be after seeing what she’d seen today.

  “Marco and Elizabet’s other pets are meeting us near Oriana’s as soon as we can get there.” Eric looked at each man facing us in turn, daring them, I think, to remember why we’d gathered here, that Anna Grace was one in a long line of many, and wouldn
’t be the last if we didn’t do something. “We need to do damage control here before we can leave.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Eric,” I snapped, and beside me, Tangi snuffled out a soft laugh.

  Brother, his wolf whispered in my mind, and for the first time since entering the house, I looked at him, really looked. His eyes were that icy green they became when his wolf ran high in him and his fingers were curled into thick fists at his sides. His shoulders had hunched under his thin t-shirt, bunching there with more muscles than I’d ever seen him sport.

  He looked like he was on the verge of changing right then and there.

  I cupped a palm over the crown of his head and dropped my voice to a soothing murmur. “We’ll get her back, Tangi. You don’t have to go. Fact is, I’d rather you stay behind and keep watch or something.”

  He was already shaking his head, dislodging my hand. Two names bled together and spooled between us, overlapping until they were one, comingling with an oddly numb pain and the helpless fury of a caged beast.

  Fen, Anna Grace.

  And I understood. Tangi had as much right as anybody to take a shot at Fen. Remy had lost unnatural daughters and no telling how many pets. Kyle and Trillium had probably done the same, and even Carl had suffered under the brutal tyranny of Oriana and her right hand, or if not them, then someone just like them. Why else would a man become a hunter?

  Tangi’s pack had almost been destroyed by Oriana, but Fen had taken it one step farther and tortured Tangi, raped him when he was just a kid, and done who knew what other damage.

  Yeah, my pet wolf had his own axe to grind here. It wasn’t in me to stop him.

  “Ephraim, Jordy,” Remy said. “You know what to do.”

  The two pets peeled off from the group and jogged outside, ostensibly to do damage control, like we could afford the time sap.

  “Relax, Jason. Oriana will want to gloat for a while before she turns Anna Grace over to Fen. We have time to cover our asses here.” Kyle crossed his arms over his chest and met my gaze head on. “Besides, Mad Trilly wants her slice of the fun. She insists, particularly if Runty Boy there is part of the charge, but I have to coax her out of the car into the sun first.”

  Eric rubbed the pads of his thumb and forefinger against his closed eyelids, hiding his expression from the small crowd observing him. Remind me to help her find another nickname for me.

  The disgruntled thought raised a thin shred of humor, one I couldn’t resist prodding out of my lover, in spite of the dire situation. But it fits you so well.

  His hand dropped away from his eyes, revealing a scowl. I’ll remember you said that the next time Trillium wants to play.

  The pointed remark hit its mark, but I let it slide. Eric had always been better at arguing than me, and anyway. The quick back-and-forth had done its job, easing enough of his tension for the cold man to seep out of Eric’s expression. Hazel eyes greeted me, lit with enough love through the worry to reassure me. We’d figure out what to do. Well, he would, anyhow. Me? I figured I’d have my hands full keeping my still weak legs from buckling on me as we fought our way through Oriana’s henchmen to Anna Grace.

  Turned out Remy’s pets were two of his strongest. He’d sent them around Nadine’s neighborhood, both to gather information on who exactly had attacked her and to remove memories of our group visiting her home. The rest of us retreated to the cars and relocated to a park a couple of blocks away, where we gathered under the dubious shade of a roofed pavilion while waiting for the pets to rejoin us.

  We settled onto bench seating at the tables scattered along the concrete flooring, gathering in small groups clustered near the pavilion’s center. I sat between Eric and Tangi on one side of a table across from Kyle, Bon, and Trillium. She was oddly quiet compared to what I’d come to expect from her. I kept waiting for some outrageous outburst, but nothing ever came. The most she did was frown at the sunlight streaming down beyond the pavilion’s shadowed reaches, seeming more puzzled than afraid.

  Whatever. As long as she didn’t electrocute me with her touch or something, I was fine sitting across from her, well out of her immediate reach.

  During a scintillating conversation on crop futures, Eric reached out to me. We may die today.

  I shifted on the bench, uncomfortably aware of how true that was. Yeah.

  Are we doing the right thing?

  I jerked my head toward his, appalled he’d even ask. Trying to save Anna Grace? Fuck, yeah, Eric. Christ. Have you forgotten about her?

  No, it’s not that. Of course, we have to get her back.

  One corner of his mouth turned down and his gaze drifted over the crowd assembled around us. Remy and Paolo and some of their stable. Kyle and Trilly and Bon across from us, and Donald at another table, his homely face bowed over a book. Tangi and everything he represented, and those not here yet. Marco and part of Elizabet’s stable, waiting for Eric to signal a go, and all the other vampires and creatures who’d suffered under Oriana’s reign of terror, and now wanted a chance to even the score. And Landis, the errant hunter, squatting in a corner of the pavilion with his back against a post, right next to the brightest patch of sun available.

  And suddenly, I understood Eric’s gist. We weren’t the only ones risking our lives. We weren’t the only ones who might not survive what was coming. There was a good chance most of us would limp away from the fight, and a better one that some of us wouldn’t walk away at all.

  I cupped my hand over Eric’s narrow one and squeezed. Everybody here knows the price of admission. They know what’s at risk if we don’t win and they know what’s at risk if we don’t try. Oriana needs to be eliminated before we go home.

  I know. He inhaled a long breath and expelled it in a whoosh. I know, Jase, but God, I’d give anything to see Gigi one more time. I want to raise my daughter and watch you play basketball. I want our family to be whole again.

  Me, too, baby.

  I know. It’s just… I’m not ready to die. Are you?

  No, I wasn’t, but what else could we do? I had to try to rescue my sister. If I died doing it, at least my family knew I’d given it my best.

  But it wasn’t my lifeless corpse I saw in my mind’s eye. It was Eric’s wound-riddled body, pale and naked as he huddled against a cold stone wall, his eyes too swollen to open. It was Gigi as we’d found her after Selena’s attack, her skin slashed to ribbons, her blood soaking the carpet in her family’s home. It was an unborn child growing in the womb of the woman Eric and I loved, a child I could only vaguely imagine, though she’d already captured a place in my heart.

  I’d rather die than risk losing any one of them again.

  I draped an arm around Eric’s shoulder and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, not now, not ever. You know that.

  But—

  No. I let the firmly thought word hang between us for a long moment before forging ahead. I love you, Eric, and I will not let anything happen to you again. Do you hear me, Runty Boy?

  He sputtered out a laugh into my shoulder. Jesus God, Jase. Not you, too.

  Hey, whatever it takes.

  And I meant that more than he’d ever believe possible.

  It took half an hour for Ephraim and Jordy to do their thing and work their way back to us while the sun slowly dipped lower in the sky and shadows lengthened along the ground.

  As soon as we caught sight of them, we left (Christ, it felt like we’d spent a small eternity hopping in and out of cars today) and a short, uneventful drive later, rendezvoused with Marco on the outskirts of the vampire wilderness where we’d sought refuge the day Kyle had helped me and Eric escape Oriana’s clutches.

  The sun clung to the horizon, a deep orange ball gracing us with its fading light. The subdivision was eerily quiet. I scrubbed a hand over the nape of my neck as I scanned the unmoving curtains, the tightly locked doors, the yards bereft of kids or toys or anything signaling life. Nobody stirred outside their homes, but I coul
d practically feel the eyes of the wilderness’ inhabitants piercing into our group.

  We didn’t disembark there. As soon as we saw the two black Suburbans parked along the edge of one curb, Eric relayed the message from Marco. Do whatever it took to get to Oriana’s as soon as possible. Rally there, and then, attack.

  Nervous tension tightened every muscle in my body as we drove through the city toward the harpy bitch’s stronghold. Life moved in a blur outside the limo’s tinted windows, a surreal parody of normal. We passed a couple of parked patrol cars, even saw a few local police officers. To my utter surprise, we weren’t stopped. A couple glanced up as we approached and just as casually looked away, like they didn’t know we were on our way to Oriana’s to dig evil out by the root.

  Maybe, being largely human, they didn’t want to get involved or maybe they really didn’t know what we were up to. We hadn’t been that stealthy in our approach. Oriana had to have people watching the airports. Surely Marco showing up with war-trained pets was a huge clue that something was going down.

  Or maybe she was really arrogant enough to believe she could take him on and survive.

  It was a mystery I refused to dwell on. I spent most of the drive clearing my head, unobtrusively stretching my legs whenever I got the chance. Tangi’s scent flared over me again and again, increasing in frequency the longer we drove. By the time we made it there, he was panting lightly and his eyes had gone wolfy.

  He really had no business being here. I should’ve made him stay, should’ve tied him to Charity or something to keep them both safe.

  Eric laid his hand over mine. It was too cold, air conditioning or not, and stiff. Nowhere is safe from vampires like Oriana.

  I flipped my hand over and met his palm to palm, warming him as much as I could. He’s just so young.