by S. Young
This guy had momentarily collapsed Thea’s lung. With a mere kick to the chest.
So, he was old.
He cocked his head, eyes narrowed on her chest. “I heard the damage … now I hear nothing. You healed instantly. What are you?”
“I’m out of here.” She saw an exit door off the right side of the old stage and made a feint toward it. They chased and Thea leapt with the grace of a cat; she pushed her feet off one of the galleria pillars, using the height to jump over their heads in the opposite direction. Her landing was just as graceful, but two of the vampires ruined the suaveness of the entire maneuver by catching her. They pulled her into a brutal fight, growing more and more frustrated that she was landing hits while they failed to.
Becoming impatient, Thea sought to end it, to incapacitate, and so she snapped the neck of one of the vampires, knocking him out cold.
“Oh, you’re dead now, little girl,” the other vampire threatened. “We will fuck you up and have a lot of fun doing it. Ever been tortured? You will not like it, I assure you.”
Memories flooded Thea at the threat.
Nightmares that unfortunately were real.
And just like that, the savagery of survival instinct took over. First, she disoriented him, moving this way and that until his back was to her. Then she leapt with a light grace onto the top of a theater chair and used it to propel her onto the vampire’s back. Before he could even react, she punched her fist through his back with every ounce of supernatural strength within her, gripped tight to his heart, and ripped.
The hot muscle in her hand crumbled to ashes seconds before his entire body obliterated into dust. Thea dropped to her feet as the three remaining vampires stared at her in mounting rage.
Three blurry streaks sped toward her, surrounding her so she couldn’t find a way out. Outrage and fear flooded her as she found herself captured by two of the vampires. They held fast to her wrists, holding her outstretched. As much as she strained, she couldn’t detach them. Her original hunter stepped toward her, his eyes pure silver.
“It was never stipulated whether I was to keep you alive,” he snarled. “So, you’re dead now, bitch.”
It was difficult for Thea to feel anything approaching the word agony. Pain, yes. Agony, not so much. Ashforth was the only one who seemed to know how to inflict it.
But until that point, no one had come close to hurting her like he had.
Until this vampire pulled back his arm and thrust it like a sledgehammer through brick into her chest.
She gasped at the indescribable horror of feeling his hand curl around her heart.
He squeezed, and it was excruciating, but she still enjoyed the way his eyes rounded in horror when he realized her heart was uncrushable.
Her heart was uncrushable.
Jesus fuck.
Fury and disbelief tightened his features, and he gave her heart a yank. She muffled a gasp at the sickening sensation as her heart tugged but could not be removed.
“What the hell are you?” he breathed. “Are you—”
Flecks of coppery-tasting fluid splattered Thea’s face as the vise on her heart released.
She sagged in relief and confusion until she looked through a cloud of dust into Conall’s fierce face. His canines were out as he towered over the gathering, his arms spread wide, his claws protracted and wet with blood.
He’d just decapitated the vamp with his bare hands.
Holy shit.
A sickening ache filled Thea’s chest as it began to heal and she found herself on her knees, unable to move as she knitted herself back together.
Not that her help was required.
A mix of fear and admiration filled her as she watched the alpha fight the remaining vampires. Their deaths were appallingly quick as they came at Conall. He seemed to brace for them as they rushed him on either side, a blur of movement, hard to track.
But track them he did.
Conall punched out, claws sharp, and the vamps speed, meeting his, inadvertently caused their deaths with the force of impact. His fists slammed through their chests and he ripped out their hearts.
The next moment they were dust.
Thea tried to reassure herself that if she’d just given into killing the vampires in the first place, she could have killed them faster than even Conall had.
Still, this wolf was worryingly strong.
And he’d found her.
Which could only mean one thing.
He really did have a tracking ability.
She watched as he approached the vampire passed out cold and punched a hole through his chest, removing his heart, until he too was nothing but dust. Conall stood and glared at her. “No witnesses,” he explained.
Weariness consumed her as he came to her, his claws and canines retracting as he lowered to his haunches. “Are you all right, lass?”
She gave a huff of laughter, amused that he would ask when the last time they saw each other, she’d broken his neck. “Oh, I’m super.” Groaning, she got to her feet and scowled at the torn fabric of her shirt, trying to cover up as best she could. “Guess I know how that feels.”
“That was a close call.”
Thea looked into his eyes. He thought he was saving her life. Even if she was never truly in danger, his intention was to rescue her, so did that mean she owed him her life? Again?
You don’t fear him because there’s nothing to fear.
Suddenly the telepathic girl’s words made sense. When Conall first approached her, her body didn’t respond in warning before he revealed himself. Again, when she was hiding in the hostel in Wrocław, she hadn’t sensed him until he was outside her door.
And in the theater.
Sure, she’d been a little preoccupied with the guy who had his fist in her chest cavity, but she’d felt the vampire in the music bar, yet she hadn’t felt Conall. Wouldn’t she have felt him as soon as he entered Prague if his goal was to hunt her?
Which it was.
He’s important. His future affects your future. He’s important, Thea.
She’d said, “The wolf.” Did that even mean Conall?
And should Thea drive herself crazy trying to figure out the vague prophetic words of a stranger?
One thing was for sure, Thea could never outrun this werewolf, and he’d proven he was a force to be reckoned with.
She glowered at him, hating him for believing Ashforth’s lies. Or maybe he just needed to believe them. “Who is it?”
The wolf’s brows drew together. “What?”
“Who is the person you’re trying to save with my blood?”
Conall’s face blanked, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “This isnae the time or place for that discussion. We need to get out of here. Are you healed?”
“Completely.”
He shook his head. “I’ve never met a supernatural who heals as quickly as you.”
Remembering his broken neck, Thea eyed his strong throat. “You seem to heal fast too.”
“I shifted.” He reached out to take hold of her biceps. “The wolf in me is stronger. Shifting accelerates the healing process.”
Letting him lead her up the aisle, she eyed his broad back. “So the bullet wounds are healed too?”
“Aye.”
Thea tugged on his hold and he stopped, turning to her. “Dinnae fight me, lass.”
You don’t fear him because there’s nothing to fear.
“I owe you my life again.”
Conall smirked. “Aye. I know how much you hate that.”
“I also know that it wasn’t altruistic.”
“Correct.” He leaned toward her. “You mean one thing to me.”
“Living, breathing, blood transfusion.”
“Exactly.” He hauled her more roughly down the aisle. “For that, you’re lucky. Few people would get away with breaking my fucking neck.”
Panic rose in Thea as she swiped up her dropped backpack and let the wolf hurry her out of the theater and
into the main part of the old palace. She tried to get a hold on that anxiety, to think fast.
If Conall could track her, there was nowhere she could go to escape him. But if he didn’t mean to hurt her, only to use her blood, then perhaps there was a way for her to get out of this. She knew he had some kind of contract with Ashforth, and one he wasn’t willing to break for Thea because he believed Ashforth’s lies.
The obvious option was to trust the werewolf with the truth.
Thea shuddered at the thought.
No. It was out of the question.
She never allowed herself to go back to that place, and she didn’t trust the wolf to take him there with her.
The only thing to do was to bide her time.
An insidious voice whispered in her ear that it wasn’t the only option available to her. If she killed Conall, she would be free again. Surely he knew that?
He’s important. His future affects your future. He’s important, Thea.
Thea attempted to throw away the young woman’s prophetic words.
For now, the goal was to make Conall believe she needed him somehow. Men always thought women needed them. Maybe she could eventually convince him to work alongside her and they’d both get what they wanted.
If not … well … if it came down to her or the person he was trying to save, Thea was choosing herself.
Ultimately, if she had to, Thea would kill Conall, if it meant her survival.
11
Conall flicked a look at Thea as he took her to the four-star hotel he’d checked into upon his arrival. They’d taken the time, and therefore the risk, to clean the blood off her face and his hands in a public restroom in Lucerna Palace, and she’d changed her shirt. Luckily, no other vampires had sought them out.
Conall wasn’t afraid of Thea running because he saw the moment in her eyes when she realized she could never run from him.
And he also knew the moment she’d realized her only option was to kill him.
That meant Conall was on high alert.
She was silent as she walked calmly at his side into the elevator. He watched her in his peripheral vision. Thea observed everything about their surroundings. At first, he thought it was because she was plotting but when they walked into the hotel room, he began to think otherwise.
Her steps slowed as she took in the room and her fingertips whispered across one of the luxurious twin beds. There was something vulnerable in her expression as she turned to him.
“This is nice.” Her eyes darted away and she sat slowly down on the bed she’d touched. She looked uncomfortable.
She’d known poverty for a long time.
Remembering the shitty apartment in Budapest and the hostel where he’d found her in Wrocław, Conall felt a pang of some unknown feeling in his chest. Then, as he watched her smooth her hand over the bedding, her movements unconsciously graceful, he felt something else stir inside him.
Pity for the hellion was the last thing he needed.
She’d broken his goddamn neck, for Christ’s sake.
She was a murderer.
And as she’d so eloquently put it, she was his sister’s blood donor. Nothing else.
“You’re acting as if you’ve never seen a nice room before and we both know that’s not true. You must have been living in the lap of luxury as Ashforth’s ward.”
Her head whipped toward him and he saw outrage flicker in her dark eyes before she banked it. Whatever she’d momentarily wanted to say, she stifled the urge and stared at him.
It was unnerving.
Even more so since he felt a prickle of guilt he did not understand.
Eventually, she turned to the window, gazing at the dark world outside, her delicate profile at odds with the strength contained within her. “Since it looks like you’re going to be sticking around, you should know those vampires were hired to capture me. I’m guessing by the same person who hired the humans who attacked us.”
This unknown hunter was a concern. Conall nodded and sat down on the other twin, hungry and weary. He didn’t want to be in Prague. He wanted to wake up to the sounds of a loch lapping at the shore, to the sight of the sky reflected in the tranquil waters.
Instead of to a bustling city and an enigmatic Thea Quinn.
On that thought, Conall realized he wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.
She might murder him in his sleep.
“Ashforth is looking into it,” he said, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. “Whoever it is, he must have alerted local contacts to your possible arrival. Your energy, your scent, make you an easily identifiable target to supernaturals.”
“Lucky me.” She shot him a wry look. “So, what now?”
“I take you back to Scotland and we try to evade this mystery man until Ashforth gets to the bottom of it. Once we’re in Scotland, you’re his problem, not mine.”
“How do you know I won’t kill you?” she asked.
“I dinnae.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Conall.”
He bristled at the sound of his name on her lips. “You’ll never get the chance, lass.”
There was silence between them until her belly grumbled. When he raised an eyebrow at her, she smirked. “Does my internment come with room service?”
Sighing, he got up off the bed and searched for a menu. Finding one, he handed it to her. “Pick something.”
She browsed it and he watched an attractive flush crest her cheeks. “Anything?”
“Aye, anything.”
Something like anticipation filled her expression. Conall ignored the appealing sound of the smile in her voice as she said, “I’ll have the filet.”
He ordered them both steak and immediately regretted it when the food arrived. Thea took her time over the meat, seeming to savor every second. As he watched her, it became harder to quiet the doubts in the back of his mind. Doubts, that if he were honest with himself, had been there from the beginning.
If Thea had the gift to make anyone believe whatever she wanted, if she was as strong as Conall knew she was, as fast, as goddamn powerful, then why was she living in poverty?
And why did the vampires in that theater get the better of her unless she’d been trying not to kill anyone?
Just as she’d broken his neck instead of killing him.
Why was she biding her time with him now? Why let him bring her to the hotel when she could have fought him in the theater?
Was it about owing him?
Or was there more to her story than Ashforth was telling?
Conall dragged his gaze away from her. The image of Callie’s face as they said goodbye floated across his mind’s eye, heavy with the hope and faith that he could find the cure to save her life.
Thea was Ashforth’s problem. She’d murdered his family. She deserved his revenge.
And Callie deserved a chance at life.
That was all that mattered.
His doubts be fucking damned.
“If you think you can change my mind, think again,” he told her abruptly as she finished her meal.
Her cognac eyes bored into his with so much soul, he had to fight a war inside himself. Conall wasn’t sure if the side of his conscience that was winning was the selfish or the righteous.
“I need your blood to save my sister. She’s dying from a lycanthropic disease called apogee. And I’d take on an army to protect her. Nothing else matters to me. Do you understand?”
Her expression was granite as she placed her empty plate on the sideboard and walked back to the bed. “I’m tired. A vampire tried to rip my heart out today, so I intend to sleep.” She looked him directly in the eyes. “I don’t have any plans to kill you tonight, Wolf Boy, so catch some z’s too.”
Despite the flare of irritation he felt at the ridiculous nickname, Conall also felt more than a flicker of amusement. “But you plan to kill me eventually?”
She was silent a moment and then answered, and his instincts told him she was being honest. “I don’t
know. What I do know is that there’s someone else after me and you’ve saved my ass twice. I can’t get rid of you, so I may as well make use of you.”
Her words caused a stirring somewhere they shouldn’t. Poor word choice on her part. “Make use of me?” His voice was gruff.
She flicked him a casual look as she kicked off her shoes and got into the bed, fully clothed. “Bodyguard.” She reached up and switched off the lamp at her bedside.
Surprised, Conall snorted. “And here I thought you didnae need a bodyguard.”
“Me too. Until a vamp punched a hole in my chest.” Although she tried to hide behind levity, he heard the slight tremble of uncertainty in her words.
“Is that the closest you’ve come to death, lass?”
“No,” she whispered, the duvet rustling as she turned her back to him. “Death and I are old friends.”
Despite her assurances, Conall refused to sleep. Instead, his mind returned him to the events of the night, to the moment he’d tracked Thea’s scent to the theater, when he walked in and saw the vampire punch a hole through Thea’s chest as the others held her captive. Panic unlike anything he’d felt suffused him, and he’d acted on savage instinct.
One minute he’d been at the theater door, the next he was across the room, claws and teeth out. He’d swung his arm toward the vampire’s neck with the force of an axe, pouring his rage into it.
He could still feel the moment his claws severed through skin, muscle, and bone, the impact juddering up his shoulder and into his teeth.
It was Conall’s first vampire kill, and three more had followed. Guilt didn’t come to him, however, as he laid staring at the hotel ceiling, listening to the almost imperceptible sound of Thea breathing.
Conall had vampire acquaintances, a few he even considered friends. They were based in Glasgow, though like most vamps, his friends liked to travel. Although Conall knew many vampires had no qualms about killing humans, they tended not to. A quick bite here and there was usually the extent of the damage they caused. But the older they got, the less empathetic many of them seemed to grow toward humans. And there were always the psychopaths among any species.
Mostly, vampires and werewolves kept their distance from one another. It was instinct. Some believed the reason for the natural discord was rooted in their origins, but then Conall didn’t believe in the origin stories.