“I’m alright,” he finally answered her unasked question. “It’s just a few scratches.”
“It smells like more than just a few scratches,” the vampire disputed. Her eyes still couldn’t return to gray and the fangs remained. It was some reflex of her kind that they couldn’t hide what they were in the face of blood. Perhaps it was a deficiency put upon them by nature to help identify them to their prey. If it was, it was a rare save since they were the epitome of killing machines. “You brought the first aid kit. Maybe you should use it.”
Reaching back for the first aid kit, he noted the state of the girl behind him. The fresh shirt was torn significantly at the bottom revealing her right leg up to the hip. The force it had taken caused the opposite shoulder and neckline to rip leaving string fraying at the seams. With the bad lighting, his exceptional night vision had more of a workout trying to make out if Lena had taken any more damage than the bite on the arm. She seemed alright and had taken fewer scratches than he had at least.
Nick removed his own shirt to examine the damage he had taken from the claws across his chest. Thanks to his above average healing abilities, the six inch long gashes didn’t look as bloody as on a regular human. Such a set of cuts might have led a person to bleed out, but his skin tended to clot quickly. Taking a tube of the plastic bandage spray on, Nick covered his wounds.
“Don’t you need to put on some bactine or something?” Nicola asked as she glanced over at his workmanship.
With a quiet laugh, Nick replied, “The only thing I have to worry about is the werewolf curse being passed on and we already know that my blood can resist that. The girl is further proof. They had for two weeks and still couldn’t change her even to the last minute.”
The vampire chuckled, “You’ll probably die from a head cold just to prove you wrong.”
“Well, that would suck,” he smiled as he noted his pants. The slide had scuffed up his knees and dirt marked them from cuff to knee.
Replacing his shirt, Nick sighed. He would have to take stock once he was back at the apartment, which didn’t take too long the way Nicola was driving. She proved to be a bit of a lead foot and he just hoped no police noticed them on the way home.
After parking in the building’s parking garage, Nick led the two girls past an intrigued looking doorman sitting behind his desk. Lena in her torn shirt and Nick’s clothes looking worse for wear, he was sure to be part of a story in the immediate future. For someone who tried to stay under the radar in many ways, he seemed to be making more and more waves lately.
After a trip up the elevator and the short walk to his door, they all moved to the living room to flop on the couches there. It was still early in the night, but Nick was feeling more drained as the adrenaline of the fight and escape left him.
“Perhaps I should run home and get Lena some clothes?” Nicola asked as she laid her legs over his on the couch. The girl she spoke of had tucked her legs under her and pulled the shirt tighter around her upper legs for modesty. “It’s still early enough that the club shouldn’t be too much of an issue getting past.”
Talk of a club and the vampire’s home brought Lena’s attention. “You own a club?”
“My clan does, yes. We live in the same building as the nightclub and use it for income. Even vampires can’t live here for free.”
“You know we could just go back to my dorm and get my clothes instead,” Lena added. “I wouldn’t want to put you out, Nicola. You could just run me by there and drop me off, if you two wanted. You’ve done more than enough for me already, Nick.”
As Nicola glanced to Nick, he shook his head at the girl. She could feel that he was a bit sad about stopping her reunion with her friends, but they both knew she couldn’t go back to her life just yet. “Nicola can get you some clothes for the weekend. I want to make sure that there aren’t any complications for you before we send you back to your regular life.”
Lena’s brow furrowed a little at the refusal. She had just been a prisoner and wondered if she was simply exchanging one prison for another. “But why now?” the girl asked starting to look defensive. The apartment was a far cry from the basement cell of the werewolves’ home, but she didn’t want to be someone else’s prisoner either.
“You’ve been through a lot and I would guess that there are a lot of questions that you might have. More importantly, other people are going to have questions for you that I’m not sure you can answer.”
The girl wasn’t stupid. As she went to open her mouth to protest, Lena realized that it was going to be rather hard to tell people that she had been kidnapped by werewolves. “I guess telling people that I’ve been hanging out with werewolves and vampires could be a problem.”
Chuckling, Nick nodded and replied, “Not only that, but things could get pretty ugly if people do believe you. You either wind up in an asylum trying to prove you were right or potentially set off a war between man and the creatures of night. Neither idea is a particularly great idea.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted, “but I can’t stay here forever. People probably miss me already.”
“They do indeed,” he agreed. “In fact, it was a friend of yours who works for me that told me of your disappearance. I had also seen you in a vision, so when she came to me and the pieces of the puzzle began to come together I knew I had more than one reason to save you.”
“Because I am different like you? Are you planning to keep me here because you’re lonely for more people like us?” The girl frowned thinking aloud as she asked, “And what are we exactly anyway?”
Nick smiled, “Like I said, you’re going to have questions. First, our race calls ourselves voran. We are, as best I know, nature’s way of protecting humans from darker things. We’re stronger than human and faster. Our night vision and aura blades make us capable of killing supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves. We even have some sort of telekinesis or something that lets us slow a fall or increase our jumps by lightening our bodies. Then there’s the built in radar, which lets us know where people and creatures are around us without sight or smell or hearing.”
Lena’s jaw fell open slightly and closed again a few times as she tried to process what he was saying. “Are there more like us then,” she finally pushed out.
Nick frowned a moment before he confessed, “I really only know of one other. She’s older than I am and might know more, but she’s never confided in me.”
Lena’s brow furrowed before she asked, “How old is that?”
“I would guess that Vivian is over three hundred years old.”
She gasped. “Three hundred, then how old are you?”
Forming a gentle smile, Nick confided, “I was born about 1880. The records weren’t very good back then, so I’m not completely sure.”
The girl’s mouth opened trying to believe the man that looked like he was just in his twenties was really more like one hundred thirty years old. She looked ready to ask Nicola as well, but the vampire frowned at her angrily.
Pointing her finger at Lena, Nicola shook it at her and said, “It’s not polite to ask a woman her age like that. I’ll just say that Nicholas is quite a bit older than I am, but the one who sired me is about his age. Marek converted me a long time ago, so I also don’t look my age.”
“You have that to look forward to, if you don’t do something stupid like letting the werewolves find you again,” Nick said trying to remind her of why she was here.
Her eyes widened as she thought upon his last advice. A moment’s thought brought her attention back to him as she asked, “Do you think they’ll come after me?”
“I have some ideas on that, but for now I think you should stay here for awhile. Give me a little time and I think we can give you your life back at least to the point that you can finish college safely.
“First, I think if Nicola would be so kind as to run over and get you a couple days worth of clothes to start, then we can turn to the other things. While she’s do
ing that, I think I’ll hit the shower since I am a mess.”
Carefully removing Nicola’s legs from his, Nick went to his room to look for a change of clothes. The girls stared at each other a minute in his absence.
“So you’re a vampire,” Lena drew out the words talking a bit slowly as she processed the information.
Nicola nodded, “though my clan isn’t the typical kind of vampire. We hunt rogue vampires that can’t control themselves because of their hunger.”
With another frown of confusion, the girl asked, “What makes your people different?”
Nicola pointed with her look at the bedroom out of their sight. “Him.”
“What does Nick have to do with your clan?”
Her gray eyes came to rest on Lena and the girl thought she saw something strong in the vampire’s eyes. There was an emotion threatening to break Nicola’s hold on calm. “He saved Marek from becoming just another vampire killing machine when they found out just a few drops of voran blood a day can make us pretty much normal. We’re almost human because Nick gives us a bit of his blood to dull the blood lust. With those few drops a day, we can eat and drink like you do.”
Looking at the bite on her arm from Eric, Lena looked from it back to the vampire. “But blood still makes you hungry? Or is it more excited? I saw your eyes change when you saw Nick’s cuts.”
Shrugging, Nicola admitted, “I said we’re nearly human. It’s not a cure for us, just a way to subdue most of our urges. If it was perfect, I don’t think Marek would turned me. In fact, there most likely wouldn’t be a clan at all, if voran blood was a perfect cure. Of course, if we were cured, we also wouldn’t be vampires now would we?”
Getting up from the couch, the vampire walked over to the table holding Nick’s keys. “Will you be alright while I’m gone?”
Lena nodded at the pale blond and wondered at her story. She could tell that there was something between Nick and Nicola. It was obvious and that seemed strange to her. Could she have felt like that for a werewolf?
When the door closed, Lena was left to her thoughts and wondered what was going to become of her life now? Did she have to stay with Nick forever? He had implied that she could go home if they were sure that the werewolves wouldn’t come for her again. What was he planning to prevent that? While a prisoner, she had pretty much told them all about herself. Ramon had grabbed her at the school library after all, so it wasn’t like they couldn’t track her down even on a large campus.
If Nick couldn’t do something about the werewolf threat, Lena would have to change schools for sure. They would hunt her down and kill her. She was sure of it after the way Eric and the others had turned on her. If not for Charlotte, Logan and Miguel coming to her aid, and of course Nick, she knew that she would be dead now.
Lena got up to check out the apartment. She could hear the water running so Nick was there, even if her radar didn’t know already anyway. The girl didn’t want to stumble into her protector there, if only because she had a feeling that Nicola would kill her for it.
Walking into the kitchen, the girl noted how shabby she looked in the gleam of a chrome toaster. The red shirt that she had stolen was torn on the right. A werewolf’s claws had tried to grab her or worse, but only the shirt seemed to have suffered. Pulling the cloth up a bit with no one there to see, Lena checked for cuts. She was clean. Only the shirt had suffered. The only mark she had on her was that of Eric’s wolf bite. Dirt covered her legs and arms along with the blood on her right. She needed a shower as well, but not until Nicola had some clothes for her. It would be a waste just to put the torn shirt back onto her.
When the water stopped, it wasn’t long before Nick walked into the living room once more. A black shirt and jeans, but barefooted, the man was clean once more and looking presentable. He tossed a small pile to Lena. A short sleeve shirt and cotton shorts with a draw string to tighten around her smaller hips and a towel to dry off with, gave the girl something to use.
“Until Nicola gets back, these should do. At least you can get some of the wolf smell off of you anyway,” he said making a face that said she didn’t smell too good.
With a quick thanks, Lena went to the bathroom. She stripped off the shirt and gave herself a last look in the mirror. Her hair was wild and she was dirty. Other than the wolf bite, Lena thought she didn’t look that much worse for wear despite two weeks of being held captive by werewolves. She shrugged thinking that she might have lost a little weight while in the cell, but the girl wasn’t skin and bones. In fact, her curves would probably get her noticed in almost any bar as she walked in the door.
She laughed. “The werewolf cell diet guaranteed to get rid of the freshman twenty. I’m living proof that bad diets work.” Sticking out her tongue at herself in the mirror, Lena turned on the water and worked on washing away the werewolf on her.
Chapter 21- Picking Up Strays
It was still dark when Nick and Nicola slipped out of the apartment. Lena had gone to sleep in the spare bedroom several hours earlier. She hadn’t even waited for Nicola to return and had simply used the clothes he had given her.
“I can’t believe that you’re going back there.” Nicola sat with her arms folded and angry with him in the passenger seat.
Nick shrugged as he drove her back to the Lair. They hadn’t felt exactly comfortable leaving the two girls together. Lena’s view on vampires was unclear and could have been skewed by the werewolves in her time with them. Once the sun started to come up, Nicola would want to sleep and worrying over whether the voran would start looking for a stake for her heart wasn’t the best of situations.
“She’s worried about the three wolves that stood up for her, so I thought that I’d try to help them out as best I can. Honestly, without their help, we wouldn’t have been able to save the girl and I’d probably be dead.”
“Humph,” Nicola sniffed at the dramatic statement, “you don’t think you could have taken them down if you were trying? Those blades of yours could level the playing field even with that many wolves.”
He shook his head frowning at the naiveté the woman was spouting. If she wasn’t kidding about twenty to one odds, then Nicola was truly clueless. “I would’ve had problems with their leader, if not the rest of them. He resisted the blades more than once. It wasn’t until I caught him across the face that I managed to distract him long enough to get past.”
The girl looked surprised by the statement. “Why would he be so strong against your blades? Do you think older werewolves and maybe even vampires might be too powerful for you to kill?”
Shrugging, he could only answer, “I’m not sure. Some stories have said some attacks that work on lesser creatures don’t work on their more ancient sires. Maybe they’re right?”
With a sigh, Nicola replied, “I hope not. Those stories always have the oldest being the most powerful and only the head of the rival band can fight him, but once there’s a winner then the other takes over. If you can’t beat the worst of them and reset the playing field, then bad things could come after.”
“Maybe,” was his best answer? He wondered if Vivian’s powers were stronger since she was older than he was.
After dropping Nicola off at the Lair, where she could sleep safe and sound, he turned the Escape southwest and back out of the city. Nick felt anxious. He was heading back to the scene of the crime so to speak. His kind might be able to slip under the werewolves’ radar before they knew about him, but they definitely knew him now. His scent would be just as much on their mind as any vampire’s. His biggest hope was that the morning after the hunt would leave them weaker than normal.
He had asked Lena what she knew about the werewolves and their powers, but she hadn’t been told much and hadn’t seen a lot of their transformations until the full moon. All the other knowledge he had on werewolves came from movies and, of course, most of that couldn’t be trusted as fact.
As the SUV brought him near the path with the werewolves, Nick got out again letting h
is sixth sense range as far as he could make it. There were still werewolves there. Light was touching the horizon and the moon had given up the sky. If the stories of werewolves exhausting themselves during the full moon were correct, then most of them should be somewhere in these woods. A wolf could range a bit, but he doubted that they would wander too far from their starting point.
Nick knew Charlotte’s aura the best among the three wolves having met her on his day of scouting. If his hunch was right, she would be near her brother given the situation of standing up to fight Eric and the rest of their pack. It took a little walking towards the cars and the camp site before he picked up Charlotte. There were only a couple more werewolves near her, so he assumed those would be the two men. He could also feel the main pack near the campsite. Nick hoped his scent wouldn’t travel on the morning winds or it would be a rough run back to the car, which probably would not end well.
The voran hurried. The wolves didn’t seem to be moving, so perhaps they all slept. He found Charlotte curled up on her side. He could see scratches and cuts, but she was breathing normally. Completely bare, Nick could assume that she hadn’t tried to return to the campsite or cars for clothes.
Noting a tall blond haired man lying on the ground, he wondered if that was her brother. If he was, the man was day to her night for looks. Kneeling to wake the girl, Nick caused her to start. Eyes opened in surprise and he could tell that her mind would need a second to fully awake and realize where she was.
“Who…?” she started, but his face quickly made sense to her. “You!”
“Shhh,” he hushed her unsure of who would be listening and perhaps be more ready to fight. “Quiet down, Charlotte. Is that your brother?” he asked pointing to the blond starting to stir from her cry.
Nodding, Charlotte asked, “What are you doing here?”
“Lena was worried that your pack had turned on you. Will you two be safe after standing up for the girl?”
Vorans and Vampires (Book 1): Voran the Night Guardian Page 17