Hunger Untamed H3

by Dee Carney

  Victor scanned everyone, trying to locate anyone out of place, and couldn’t tell which of these vampires might turn on either of them. Lucy needed to get closer to Sage, to disable him, before he knew what was happening.

  Christ, he didn’t see the true object of Lucy’s intent until the last possible second. She pulled on the fire alarm as casual as you please and walked away as if she’d done nothing more mundane than read a sign placard. For a split second, it didn’t seem like anything would happen. Then blaring, enough to startle the thought out of his head, shook Victor to his core. The alarm rang with a trill intensity he felt through his bones.

  Patrons in the gallery snapped to attention, then shrieked en masse. The more agile and quick-thinking searched for the nearest exit. In small clusters they moved with quick efficiency, heading toward the outside. The twin—the other one still out of sight—made his way toward a partition.

  “Gotcha,” murmured Victor.

  He and Lucy went after the guard, knowing Sage couldn’t be too far away. Figures they had him tucked away in a corner, out of sight of the general public, but close enough he could entertain an audience should he choose.

  Victor heard movement behind him. Turned to find a man wearing a gray shirt and dark gray tie stalking them. His features were rough, his jawline sharp. Dark hair draped across his head, obscuring his forehead and ending in curls over his neck. His hands were loose at his sides, the look in his eyes hard and unyielding. Not vampire.

  “Go,” Victor barked at Lucy. He sure as hell didn’t want them splitting up, but anyone who chose to go after the guard instead of fleeing from the imagined danger had an agenda. Was he one of the werewolves? Why hadn’t he come to Victor first, then?

  Shit. He wouldn’t take the chance someone else might have had a plan for Sage. His decisions as part of the Council weren’t always popular. Victor withdrew his gun, which had to be a deterrent to anyone.

  The guy didn’t even slow. He withdrew a crossbow pistol seemingly out of nowhere and pointed it in Victor’s direction. Before he could reconcile the device for what it was, he was forced to move as a metal arrow whizzed by Victor. The wind touched his face where the arrow should have gone if he hadn’t spun at the last second.

  Glass shattered beyond Victor. His gaze flitted to the ruined artwork, crystalline pieces scattered on the floor surrounding a pedestal. By the time he turned back around, he’d wrapped his hand around his gun and drew it. One shot after the other left the chamber, aimed at the fleeing man. He’d raced after Lucy, who was no longer in sight. Victor had to get to her, but indecision tore at him about what to do with the attacker.

  Was he after Victor or Sage? Lucy? The damned alarm made it hard to think.

  No matter what, he had to protect Lucy.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lucy had to trust Victor had her back.

  She ran through the curtains separating the gallery from a backroom. Papers flew from a small desk when she rounded on it and headed toward the door swinging closed ahead of her. Her heart hammered while she picked up speed, boots pounding the tiled floor. Metal hit her hands as she punched the push bar, the sting a place to focus. If she lost sight of what she was doing, she’d put herself in danger needlessly.

  Hunt Sage smartly. Don’t end up his victim again.

  She couldn’t see the person or people she was chasing, but something in her gut told her there’d been more than one person in that little office. They’d fled through the back door once the alarm had sounded. Since she and Victor hadn’t seen Sage elsewhere, she had to be on the right track.

  One guard at a minimum. Maybe two.

  Victor would have her back.

  Lucy thought she’d caught sight of Sage’s distinctive hair several feet ahead of her. The man wore a linen shirt and brown slacks. If not for the tailored lines of his clothing and the haircut that must have cut at least a few hundred dollars, she might have dismissed him. A man of Sage’s affluence, especially one who liked to flaunt it like him, stood out.

  He was flanked on either side by familiar sandy blond hair. Identical broad shoulders and carriage. One wore a white blazer over dark pants, while the other wore a green collared shirt and similar dark pants. The twins kept pace with Sage, their strides casual.

  All three men individually wouldn’t have caught anyone’s attention. With Lucy on the lookout for a powerful man flanked by his twin guards, they shone like a beacon. None of them looked back although the fire alarm continued to blare. The people they passed turned to stare and whisper about the building still spilling a crowd from its exits. Lucy’s heightened hearing caught snatches of conversation, but she stayed focused.

  Lucy increased her pace, determined not to let anyone get between them. She came up with a dozen plans to get close to Sage, distracting his guards, but had to discard each of them. No matter how much she wanted to withdraw the guns and start shooting at his back, he’d only brush off the wounds like waving off a mosquito. The same could be said for the guards. She had to figure out how to separate them.

  She thought about Cindy, who’d been her heart. How the two of them had grown up together, best friends and thick as thieves. They’d been certain their lives had been about to change for the better, vampires desiring them for their fairy-good looks. Before falling asleep each night, they’d whisper and giggle about what the future years would bring. Never in a million years had either considered that it might have brought them to their ends.

  Tears blurred her vision for a few seconds until she blinked them away. She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

  Her stomach gnawed, heat flaring outward. Victor had explained to her the feelings that would flood her system while she finished transition. How desire would make her a wanton thing.

  With every footfall, the heat burned brighter, but it wasn’t desire filling her system. The memories of Cindy fueled her fury. Although she no longer hurt from poison, echoes seemed to bounce inside her chest. She could barely breathe because of the stabbing pain. The man ahead of her should assume all responsibility for her anguish.

  Her eyes narrowed, focused on the trio of men. She pushed past the crowds separating her from them until at some point the people stepped out of her way. The scent of human sweat and colognes assaulted Lucy while she moved, prodding her to go faster. Fortunately, the people parted before her as if they could feel the building determination and bitterness, shrinking away to keep from touching it.

  Footsteps behind her snagged her attention. She glanced over her shoulder, expecting to find Victor. She almost stumbled when a man with crystal-blue eyes studied her, fast on approach. He had some kind of gun-like weapon in his hand.

  Lucy turned back around, searching her mind. She looked for anything in her memory from that quick glimpse that said he was another vampire, coming after her. She and Victor were in danger from executioners, but how had they located them so quickly? Hell, they hadn’t known they would be here until a short while ago, themselves.

  If he was a vampire, why did he carry a gun, though? She couldn’t wait for any answers to come to her, so she went for her own gun, hidden by the wrap she wore. Shrugging out of the garment, letting it lie where it fell, she spun and raised her weapon, ready to fire.

  The assassin’s eyes widened when his gaze alighted on her, and that told Lucy more than she wanted to know. He hadn’t been looking at her, but beyond her. At Sage?

  He raised the gun, finger on the trigger. Lucy dove to the side, stumbling into an elderly couple with the misfortune of looking at custom jewelry. “Hey!” The gentleman wagged his finger at Lucy after she set them to rights. Neither looked injured, just annoyed. “Learn how to walk.”

  “Sorry,” Lucy mumbled at them. Her arm stung where something had grazed it, leaving behind a weal oozing bright red blood. She slapped her gun hand over it, decided she’d live and turned to track the guy. Asshole had shot something at her. Not bullets, which meant he knew she was a vampire, but somethin
g that hurt. What was he?

  “She’s got a gun!”

  From behind her came the sounds of the couple scrambling to get out of her way. What a sight she must have made with a bleeding arm, strands of hair dangling from a lopsided ponytail and of course, running through a crowd with a gun. Why the police hadn’t tackled her to the ground yet, she didn’t know. It couldn’t be her concern right now. Besides, the fewer people between her and her target, the better.

  She lost sight of the guy, and he’d lost her visual on Sage. Fuck. Left with no options, she started jogging in the direction she’d last seen the Councilman. If the guy who shot at her really was after Sage, she’d spot him too. He had to be a werewolf, but what was he doing here?

  The crowd was beginning to thin, the borders of the art fair fast approaching. If she didn’t catch up to Sage soon, he’d make it to his car, and their only opportunity for getting to him tonight would be gone. That wasn’t an option, so she put on a burst of speed, searching down side alleys and peeking in shop windows, although the ones out here were dark. Running out of options.

  Something inside of her went languid, her heart beginning to race. Lucy glanced over her shoulder, simmering heat hitting full boil as she spotted Victor running toward her. It might have been a signal of the new bond between them, but she’d put her money on plain old lust. Damn that man could make her lose her train of thought.

  “Lost him,” she called to him.

  “Did you see the guy with the crossbow?”

  “That’s what that was?” She poked her arm out, pleased to see the wound had closed. “He got me here and distracted me from Sage. Know who he was?”

  “No clue.”

  Damn it. Lucy stopped walking and dropped to a crouch, frustration mounting. Breathing hard, she tried to think on what to do next. Sage had been forced, like everyone else, to park away from the art walk. He wouldn’t be in the main parking garage, too vain to be forced into behaving like one of the humans. His car no doubt idled someplace close. “Do we split up?” she asked Victor. “I’m out of ideas other than to start going down the side streets. Find his car.”

  “With that guy on the loose?” Victor shook his head. “Until I know more about him and what he wants, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “We’re losing, Victor.” Lucy shook her head. “I thought this would be easier than this. I thought—”

  Screams came from up ahead. Her head snapped up, eyes searching that direction. The sounds of multiple pairs of feet from panicked people bounced off the streets.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” Victor shouted.

  He needn’t have bothered. Lucy pushed away from the concrete and started running. She stumbled past people trying to get away from where she figured she needed to be. Something bad was going down and with vampires on the loose, she’d bet good money Sage was at the center of it.

  Lucy skidded to a stop at the corner of Lake and Satsuma, her back to the crumbling brick building. Victor pressed beside her, guns in both hands. She glanced at him, met his eyes, then drew a deep breath. After withdrawing her own piece and undoing the strap on one of the stakes, she raced toward the commotion.

  Before she got far, Lucy pulled up short, skin crawling. She gasped in horror. “Oh, God.”

  Like everywhere else in the city, oak trees lined the sidewalks. Their branches and moss sycophants often sweeping into pathways and forcing pedestrians to brush past them or duck out of their way. It made for a beautiful scene at sunset.

  What Lucy found was a man hanging from one of the lower limbs, his hands scrabbling at the wire cinched around his neck. One of the guard twins. His legs kicked uselessly at the air.

  Victor brushed past her. “He’s fine. Inconvenienced, but he’ll live.”

  She knew she should believe him, but the chilled blood in her veins would not be swayed.

  He grabbed her arm and forced her to move. “Vampire. No breath in him. A broken neck would have healed also. He’s fine.”

  Nodding, Lucy held on to his words as they moved faster. Someone had strung him up, leaving only one other guard with Sage. It also meant they were close to the Councilman and still had a chance to catch him up.

  Victor scanned the area. “This way...c’mon.”

  Lucy followed and at last—thank God, finally—heard a skirmish coming from one of the side streets. They pumped their legs harder and headed straight toward the source of the noise.

  Sure enough when they got there, they found Sage and his guard cornered in a dead end by the man with the crossbow. Who was this guy?

  “He’s mine,” Lucy yelled.

  The dark-haired man spun to face her, and she saw the cell in his hand. He said something rapidly into it before dropping the phone to the ground. Although he kept his crossbow leveled at Sage, he didn’t outright dismiss Lucy and Victor either. “Get your woman out of here, Collins. We had a deal.”

  Shock slapped Lucy in the face. She turned to Victor. “You know him?”

  For a few seconds, Victor’s face registered the same surprise she felt. He studied the man before scanning Sage and the guard.

  Time seemed to slow while Lucy waited for him to respond in the negative, to tell her that the man had only guessed his name—yeah, right—and that Victor had no idea who he was or what he was doing there. Her pulse raced as the seconds ticked by and he said nothing.

  “Victor?”

  “I won’t give you a second warning, Collins. You held up your end of the bargain. Now go.”

  Lucy stared at Victor, trying to make sense of all of this. Her heartbeat slowed to a crawl, pieces of it breaking off as she puzzled together everything that was happening around her.

  The werewolves wanted Sage. The werewolves knew Victor.

  A man available to the highest bidder.

  “When we first met, you told me you couldn’t take my contract,” she whispered. Not for any price.

  “Lucy...”

  But Victor had somehow shown up at Sage’s party. Damn it, she hadn’t even questioned it. Hadn’t considered that Victor shouldn’t have known how to get to Sage.

  The only way he might have known about Sage’s place of residence, done research on the elite vampire, was if he had been hired by someone else.

  By the werewolves. With a heart broken in a million pieces, Lucy lifted her weapon, aiming it at Victor’s head. She had to hear him say it. Had to know for certain.

  “Victor?”

  * * *

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  A small part of him had wondered if the man was a lycan. When he’d seen the guard strung up with such obvious efficiency, he should have grabbed Lucy by the hand and ran. He could have taken the time to explain to her what he’d tried to tell her before.

  Lucy kept the gun raised at his forehead level. It wouldn’t kill him, and she knew it. Most likely though, it would level the playing ground. “Lucy...don’t.”

  “All this time, you knew what I was after and you were hustling me?” Her eyes narrowed. “You weren’t after Sage for me. You were after him because they wanted him.”

  Yes, he’d told the lycans where Sage would be and for hours he’d wrestled with the decision of letting her know his plan. But he thought he knew Lucy by now. She would not rest, would not, if she’d thought for a split second he was blowing her chance at killing Sage. In the end, he’d chosen to play things close to the chest. Despite what she thought, his sloppy plan hadn’t come together until Corin had provided the needed information.

  “Wait a minute.” Sage’s cultured voice poked through. “I recognize you two from my house. The blood slave and her owner. Are you behind this?”

  The lycan growled. “Shut up, vampire. Your turn to talk will be soon enough.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  The twin screamed, an arrow released by the lycan pegging him in the upper chest. Blood blossomed on his previously pristine shirt, his face contorting in pain. He gaped at the shard protruding from his body
like it had grown a head and stared back at him. Victor had wondered how he’d managed to get caught in the first place and then noticed the arrow sticking out, perpendicular to his knee. That had to hurt.

  “To answer the question you’re no doubt wondering, vampire, yes, it’s ash. That’s why it hurts so much. If your employer continues to run his mouth, I will not only dispatch you, I will then turn my weapon on him. My only instructions were to hold him alive. No specifications were made about you, and certainly not about the state of his health. Alive is all that matters.”

  Victor could almost read the plans running through Lucy’s brain and he mentally begged her not to do it. No, she couldn’t aim and fire her weapon accurately or fast enough to hit the lycan. No, there were no guarantees she’d be able to stake the wounded guard. No, he still didn’t know if she could get Sage.

  Everything he’d said to her—and things unsaid—he meant. They would get Sage together, if not tonight, then another. He also wished he’d told her that he loved her before now. Before this plan backfired in his face.

  “What did you have to do with this?” Lucy asked in a low voice. She still hadn’t lowered her gun.

  “They need Sage.” He didn’t want to say more, in fear of tipping off Sage. Victor still had no idea if Sage was responsible for the heinous crimes against the lycans, but he stuck to the notion that he fucking didn’t care. When he went after Sage, it would be for Lucy. Not them.

  “So you were never helping me.” Her voice trembled with emotion.

  “That’s not true. I taught you what I thought you needed to know so that when your chance came along, you’d be able to handle yourself.”

  “But you never planned on helping me get to him,” she said with a bitterness that alarmed him. His gaze went to her trigger finger, certain he’d never be able to talk her out of not using it.