by L. E. Wilson
“LANEY!”
She heard his bellow of fear right before she went under. This time she let the water do its thing and help her rise to the surface again. Treading water, she coughed the last bit of seawater out of her lungs, pushed her sopping hair out of her eyes, and searched for the dock, swearing to herself that she was going to shave her head to match Dante’s if this was the life she was going to be living from now on.
A body landed in the water next to her. Or rather, a part of a body. A leg, to be exact. After assuring herself that it wasn’t Dante’s, Laney started swimming toward the dock. She tried not to think of what might be lurking beneath her, attracted to the smell of her blood and the rotting carcass floating nearby. She headed to the hull of the ship, and the ropes skimming the surface of the water. The loose ends looked like they were tied to the dock. Maybe she could pull herself up.
As she got closer, she heard the leader shout, “Sorry, vampire, but play time is over!”
Fear for Dante tightened painfully in her chest. Her vision flickered, and for a moment, she was afraid she was going to pass out, but then everything became clear and sharp. Energy surged through her and her strength returned as she was filled with a renewed purpose—to save her mate.
Grabbing one of the ropes, she braced her feet against the side of the dock and climbed up. Her wet sneakers slid on the slick surface, and the rope burned her hands, but somehow she made it to the top and flung herself over the side. She landed on her stomach and lifted her head.
The scene unfolding in front of her was like something out of a movie. Dante held one of the creatures two feet off the ground with a hand around its throat. Its eyes bulged from its head and its mouth flapped soundlessly as it clawed at his arm with skeletal fingers. Blood ran down Dante’s arm as he squeezed. The visible tattoos on his face and arm pulsed with power, adding to the terrifying picture he portrayed. If Laney didn’t know better, she would think he was the devil himself, risen from the depths of hell to avenge her.
As she watched, another one came running up from his right. Before she could warn him, Dante whipped his head around without releasing his hold on the first one. Fangs bared, he roared with rage and slashed the air with his free hand. Without even touching the thing, he sent it rocketing through the air and impaled it on a metal spike sticking off the railing of the ship. With an evil smile, he went back to the first one, squeezing his fist until there was a sickening pop and the creature’s head tumbled to the ground.
Dante turned his focus to their leader.
“Enough,” Steven shouted. “As amusing as this has been for us all, vampire,”—he glanced at the bodies littering the ground—“well, at least for me, I have things to do.”
Dante hissed at him and took a step forward. That was as far as he got, however. His mouth twisted in pain, he slapped his hands to either side of his head. Laney screamed as he fell to his knees, his eyes wild, searching for and finding her. He closed them briefly at the sight of her safe on the dock, then they popped open as his body was flung into the air by an unseen force. Back arched, he roared with pain, hovering mid-air while the leader calmly walked up to stand beside him.
Steven turned the box over in is hands. “Thank you for bringing this,” he told Dante as he opened it up and peered inside. “It saves me a lot of time and trouble.” Snapping the lid shut again, he looked over at the second two Dante had shot and sighed heavily. “Get up, you fools. And finish him.” With a flick of his wrist, Dante crashed to the pavement so hard the concrete busted beneath him, cracks appearing in a spider web design all around his body.
Laney struggled to keep it under control, staring in disbelief as the last two zombies, or corpses, or whatever the hell they were, slowly slid their hands under the front of their shoulders and staggered to their feet. Their faces, what was left of them, were gone, replaced by something that resembled the gore that littered a butcher’s floor.
“I can barely fucking see,” one of them complained.
“At least you still have your nose,” the other said.
Dante got his arms and legs underneath him and rose to his full height. Watching them shuffle toward him, he cracked his neck, pulling a knife from an unseen sheath on his thigh.
The fight that ensued over the next few minutes moved so fast that Laney couldn’t really keep track of what was happening, but she’d never been more terrified in her life. Occasionally, she would hear grunts of pain and catch a glimpse of a flying fist or the glint of a blade. Blood flew in all directions to spatter the pavement around them. Dante’s roar of rage failed to drown out the sound of popping bone just before one of his attackers went skidding across the ground. It jerked its broken leg back into the correct position, then it rose and went back to the fight.
Laney felt like she had been thrown into a horrifying version of The Walking Dead. Dragging her eyes away, she searched for Dante. When she found him, he was face down on the pavement with a booted foot shoved into the back of his head. He was covered in blood, one of his arms lying at an unnatural angle. She covered her mouth with her hand, but he twisted away and sprung back up to his feet with a growl that made the hair rise on her arms. Throwing his head back, he head-butted the thing behind him, then swung his left fist, catching the other one in the jaw. The temperature seemed to drop in direct proportion with his rage, and Laney began to shake violently, her wet clothes doing little to protect her.
Before he could do anything else, the two were on him, taking him to the ground as the leader laughed at his efforts to throw them off. As she watched him go down, Laney no longer felt the cold. When the leader tilted his head and pronounced dramatically, “Off with his head!” her fear turned to rage, and then transitioned to a dead calm. It descended over her like a layer of armor, a purple haze that filled her vision and tuned out the world around her other than the sight of her vampire. A buzzing filled her head until she couldn’t hear the grunts of pain coming from the male that was now a part of her. The male that was about to die before her eyes trying to protect her.
The colors around her shifted, converging on each of them in turn, picking out each of the creatures murdering her male. She focused on the one with its hands wrapped around Dante’s head. Words came to her lips, words she didn’t understand and didn’t remember learning. On her knees next to the water, Laney chanted, her voice gaining in strength, yet never rising above a whisper.
Suddenly, the creature dropped Dante as its head whipped toward her. The one eye that was still in its skull widened in fear. “Steven! She’s doing something!”
The leader searched the area around them. When it found her kneeling there, it gripped the small, wooden box until its knuckles turned white. Baring its fangs, it snarled, “Do what needs to be done. We’ll re-group. I must keep this safe.” Then he spun on his heel and was gone.
The one Laney focused on wrapped its arms around itself, like it was trying to hang on to its own body. “Stop her!” it yelled at the other one.
Laney widened her line of vision until they were both included. She’d only felt this way once before, when she was but a child, angry at what her grandfather was doing to her grandmother. Now that it was happening again, she remembered whispering something then as well, though it had escaped her memory until now. Words that she didn’t understand, yet were a part of her.
They backed away from Dante in confusion. “What the fuck is she doing?” one of them cried. The words were garbled coming from the destruction of its face. One-Eye started shaking its head in answer. “Ah, fuck. She’s a Protector. Fuck!” He fell to his knees and the other one soon followed. Laney focused on the first one as a ball of cold energy rose up inside her. With a softly spoken word, it shot from her to him. Its head fell back and its mouth opened on a scream, then the body it possessed fell to the ground as the demon was forcibly evicted. The second one quickly followed suit.
Laney watched the disembodied souls fly toward her. Their rage hit her first, and if she hadn
When it was over, Laney swayed in place before toppling forward, managing to catch herself on her hands before her forehead smashed into the cement. She was exhausted, but she crawled over to Dante with her heart in her throat. Pushing and pulling, she finally managed to roll his large body over. When she saw what they had done to him, her hand flew over her mouth to stifle her cries.
Besides his broken arm, one side of his face was smashed in, the tattoos sunken into the concave that used to be his cheekbone. A large portion of his throat was torn out, and blood poured from the wound to soak his shirt and the pavement beneath him. Air was rasping through the tear, the blood bubbling up from his windpipe until his breathing slowed down and finally stopped altogether. Everywhere she could see, his skin was cut and bleeding, like it had been lashed with shards of glass.
Laney pulled his head into her lap, her tears falling to mix with the blood on his face. She searched around desperately for something to stop the bleeding, then finally yanked her shirt off. Ignoring the cold, she wadded it up into a ball and pressed the wet material to the wound.
His mouth moved, but nothing came out, and he bared his fangs in frustration as his black eyes focused on her face. She tried to put her wrist to his mouth, but he pressed his lips together and turned his face away.
Her face burned at his rejection. “You have to take it,” she told him. “I don’t know what else to do.”
As his body started to spasm, he grabbed her hand and stuck something in it. It was the knife she had stolen from the room in his underground. With his hand over hers, he brought it to his ravaged throat just above her shirt and pressed.
“No,” she cried, sobbing harder. “Dante, no! No. I won’t do it!” She fought his hold until the knife clattered to the pavement beside his head. His eyes burned into hers, but she shook her head so hard she could feel her brains rattling around. “No,” she told him, softer this time. “You need to live, Dante. I need you to live. To stay with me.”
Footsteps pounded on the pavement around them. Acting on instinct, Laney grabbed the knife from where she’d dropped it and jumped to her feet. Adrenaline flooded her system, making her scalp tingle as she crouched over her male to face this new threat. She felt Dante’s hand grasping at her leg, and she reached over without looking and pressed down on the makeshift compress again.
“Holy shit, would you look at her,” a blond guy said. He looked like he’d just stepped off a movie set.
“Don’t let Emma hear you say that, mate,” a guy with a British accent teased.
The blond rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that. And don’t you dare go starting shit with her, Aid. She wouldn’t believe you anyway.”
Laney brandished the knife at them, her upper lip lifting in a snarl. “Stay away from us,” she shouted.
A woman with black hair pulled back in a high ponytail lifted her hands in front of her. Her green eyes flipped back and forth from Laney to Dante. She took a cautious step forward. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “We’re friends. We’re Dante’s friends.”
Laney looked from her to the four guys. Her attention was naturally drawn to one in particular, a man with dark hair and a stoic face that stood a few feet apart from the others. He had a set to his shoulders and an overall bearing about him that told her he was the one in charge. She directed her question to him. “Who are you?”
He stepped forward, showing her his hands. “I am Luukas. I am the Master Vampire of this territory. These are my Hunters.” He waved one hand toward the others. “Dante is my Hunter as well. You are Laney?”
She looked at each of them in turn, and saw nothing but worry and concern as they returned her stare. None of them made a move to disarm her. “You’re friends?” Her teeth were beginning to chatter, whether from the cold or from everything that just happened, she couldn’t say.
“Yes,” Luukas said.
Laney believed him. She lowered the knife. “Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do. He won’t take my blood—” Her words were cut off by a sob. She was babbling, but she couldn’t stop the flow of words once they’d started. “I was attacked by these…things. Corpses. They used me as bait.” She looked down at Dante. “Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do.”
The woman approached her. “Laney, I’m Shea. I’m Dante’s friend.” She smiled, and all Laney could think was how stunningly pretty she was. “I’m going to help you. Okay?”
Laney sniffed. “Okay.”
Shea squatted down next to her and Dante. “Get off him now so we can help him.”
With a start, Laney realized she was still crouching over him protectively. Leaning her weight to one side, she fell onto her ass, dragging her leg across his hips. She kept the pressure on his throat.
“Can I see your wrist?” Shea asked.
Lifting her free arm, Laney gave it to her without thought.
“Trust me, okay?” Shea asked. Then she brought Laney’s wrist to her mouth.
Dante’s body bucked next to her, and Laney looked down to see his cold, black eyes burning holes into Shea, but she just smiled. “It’s for your own good, you stubborn ass.” White fangs flashed in the light of the streetlamps just before Laney felt the female’s fangs pierce her skin. The ground shook beneath her as Dante bared his fangs and let out a gurgling roar of rage. His good hand tightened on Laney’s thigh, but in spite of his obvious fury, he made no move to get the other vampire off her wrist.
Shea released her fangs. “Put it in front of him now,” she told Laney, licking the blood from her lips.
Laney did, letting the open wound hover just above his mouth. Dante closed his eyes, clamping his mouth shut again. But she saw his nostrils flare at the scent of her blood. “Please, Dante,” she begged. “I can’t stand to see you suffering like this.”
Something in her tone must have gotten through to him. His eyes opened. They were full of pain, but they were lightened with warmth as they travelled over her face. Yet, he still wouldn’t open his mouth, even though she could feel his broken body trembling with the effort it was taking him not to drink from her.
She looked to Shea for help. “Why won’t he drink?”
Shea shook her head. “I don’t know. He’s not one to open up to people, you know?”
Laney looked around at the rest of them, but no one seemed to have an answer. “Would you give us some privacy please?”
“Sure,” Shea answered. “We’ll be right over there if you need us.” She pointed at the building on the corner.
Laney watched them leave, then turned back to her male. “All right, you son of a bitch. You’re going to listen to me. Do you fucking understand?”
He narrowed his eyes at her in warning, but she would not be put off.
“You took me from my home against my will. You keep me locked up like an animal underneath a perfectly comfortable and safe apartment. Drink my blood whenever you damn well feel like it, treat me like shit half the time, and barely remember to feed me. But you’re the first person, or vampire, I guess, to really know me. You know me. And I know you. So somehow, in spite of all that, you’ve become important to me, blood bond or no blood bond. I need you, and you need me. And I am not going to let you die on me now that I’ve just found you. So whatever fucking macho shit this is, get the fuck over it.” Biting down on her wrist again to keep the wounds open, she shoved it back into his face. “Now drink,” she ordered.
At first, she didn’t think she’d gotten through to him, but then something touched her face, and she realized he was brushing away her tears as he so often had before. “Please drink,” she whispered. “Don’t leave when you’ve only just found me.”
With a low sound that was somewhere between rebellion and submission, he opened his mouth and bared his fangs. Laney quickly pressed her arm against his lips, and felt the sharp pain of his bite with an overwhelming sense of relief. She could feel him swallowing beneath the wad of her shirt, now soaked through with his blood. His legs moved restlessly, the muscles twitching, and then the lacerations on his face began to heal before her eyes.
Lifting his distorted arm, Dante slammed it back down beside him, forcing the bone back into place with a grunt of pain. Then he wrapped one hand around her elbow and one around her hand, holding her wrist to his mouth as he drank.
A low growl rumbled through his chest, a possessive sound she was beginning to recognize. Laney responded instantly, her pulse quickening and her body pulsing with desire. His nostrils flared again.
Suddenly, he sat up, taking her wrist with him, until his ruggedly handsome face was only inches from her own. Her shirt fell from his neck, and underneath the streaks of blood, Laney could see the gaping wound was nearly completely healed.
Dante licked the blood from her wrist with languid strokes of his tongue, and Laney could feel her face heating for an entirely different reason now. He kissed the spot where his fangs had just been and lowered her arm to her lap. They stayed like that, connected only by their heated gazes, until a throat cleared next to them.
“How about we get you two home, yes?” the British guy said.
Coming back to reality, Laney blinked, still a bit dazed from what had just happened. “Okay, yeah.” Pulling her legs under her, she tried to get up, and would’ve fallen if Dante wasn’t suddenly there, lifting her up into strong arms.
“I’ve got her,” he growled at the others. One large hand attempted to cover her breasts, barely covered by her lacy bra.
Laney laid her head against his chest. “Take me home,” she whispered.
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