by Mary Hughes
“You’re kidding, right? You’re newbies; we’re all centuries old. We’ll kick your asses—”
“Help!”
Human. Female. Luke’s head swiveled.
The woman had become separated from the men. A vamp had seized her and was dragging her toward the door.
Luke leaped to her rescue. A mass of vampires boiled up in front of him. Rogues grabbed his arms and head. Caught him, slowed him. Knives slashed at him.
The vampire dragging the woman was big, with a nose like a boat’s prow. In his hands the blonde woman looked more waif-like as she struggled, kicking impotently. She let out a scream.
The rogue seized her by the neck, choking her off. Adelaide’s limp head…
Luke saw red. He twisted like a tornado, bodies flying, tearing loose as the vamp disappeared outside, leaving only a stench like hairy, sweaty balls.
With a shout, Luke blew into mist and streamed after.
Only to run into a crackling zap of electricity.
The shock collapsed Luke’s mist. He reformed, immobilized from the stun, fiery pain searing his cheek—staring into the ugly mug of the prow-nosed rogue, the vamp’s odor of militantly unwashed testosterone KOing his nostrils.
The rogue grinned and waggled a monster stun gun in Luke’s face.
Youngsters, yes. But they’d come prepared.
As Luke forced himself to stumble into motion, his cheek pain flared—his fucking face was on fire. Actual flames danced over his skin, the zapper having ignited his mist like a grain fire. Awkwardly, still half-paralyzed, he managed to slap a hand to his cheek and snuffed out the flames.
Prow-nose’s gaze flicked to Luke’s left, and his grin widened.
At that unnerving Joker rictus, Luke sucked in a horrible breath of premonition. Move move move…
Bullets ripped through his body from the side, a spray of acid tearing through his flesh. He gasped. Silver.
He wrenched himself around barely enough to throw his knife, aiming by instinct. The blade was already slicing into one gunman when he saw there were three. The other two, both big hulks in dark jackets, barely flinched as the knife hit their comrade, reloading with quick precision despite the vamp falling between them, spurting blood from his chest.
Too damned well-trained.
The woman screamed again. Luke twisted front to see the prow-nosed vampire dragging her toward the street. Luke stumbled after.
Suddenly it seemed as if dozens of rogues filled the front yard, grabbing at him. The two gunmen started firing again, riddling his back with fiery pain, bullets striking bone, lodging in his flesh.
Silver kept him from healing, stopped him misting. Hurt like hell. He had throwing stars inside his belt, but when he tried to extract one, something was wrong with his fingers. He had to call on all his training and skill to stumble zig-zags, his heart lub-dubbing erratically around impacted metal, his lungs wheezing as he lurched after the shrieking woman.
Acid drilled Luke’s stomach. These weren’t rogues, not this well-equipped and organized. And Prow-nose and his gunmen in particular were highly skilled and trained. It made him wonder if the youngsters inside were as young as he’d thought, or if they were faking it for some reason. But whose were they? Why here—and why now? If only Logan and his family were safe at home in their own stronghold…
At the curb, an ominous black van idled, back doors wide open. Ready for a human victim.
Luke reached for his mist…the silver riddling his body collapsed him almost instantly.
Fuck it. In a final, suicidal leap, he vaulted vampires, trying to reach the woman. But without mist, he’d never rescue her in time.
Despair skewered him. Just like Adelaide.
“Help her!” As he leaped, he shouted, “Emerson, Thorsson—damn it, someone get out here.”
“Protect.” Julian came roaring out of the house, tossing vampires like jumping fleas.
Prow-nose yelled, “Cover!”
Attackers turned away from the house en masse, eyes scrunched shut, and slapped hands over their ears.
Horrific foreboding triggered Luke to clap hands to ears and clench eyelids, just in time.
Bang. A brilliant flash of light hit his lids.
Ears ringing, Luke blinked away a pained white wall to see Julian stumbling around like a blind man.
A flash-bang for vamps?
While Luke clawed for his bearings, a raw shout, pumped with rage, came from the building. “Move!”
Dashing tears from his rapidly healing eyes, Luke picked out a blurred vision of the big human he’d sent to get weapons.
Owun rushed from the doorway, screaming and shaking a sword. “Get the hell out of my way.” Hunching massive shoulders, he bulled into the mass of vampires. Slashed like a berserker through the mass.
Only human, yet he plowed through the vampires like a lawn mower.
The woman screamed with rage—and bit the vamp.
He yelled and his arms loosened.
That…that makes no sense. Even a fledgling could easily hold human prey, strong-arming or hypnotizing into cooperation or biting into semi-consciousness. Yet Prow-nose wasn’t using any of the tools in the plentiful bag of a vampire’s predatory tricks.
Instead, he struggled with a resisting woman.
Too new to know better? Or something else going on?
She tore free. The prow-nosed vampire licked his wounded hand and let her run.
Luke struggled toward her. Why didn’t matter. Vampires felt everything more acutely. Maybe she’d hit a nerve. Maybe he’d had to let her go. It wasn’t as important as saving her. But again, the mass of vampires swarmed between him and the woman.
Yet the human Owun slashed his way to her side. She flung herself into his arms.
The prow-nosed vampire grinned, raised claws flashing in the street light, and leaped for the humans.
“Owun,” Julian called from the doorway. “Look out!”
Horrified silence descended on the watchers.
Luke’s heart pounded in his ears. His vision narrowed, dark edges creating almost a spotlight on the scene.
Owun released the woman and brought the sword up at the last moment. The woman stepped forward and twisted a leg in Prow-nose’s path.
The vampire stumbled into Owun’s sword, impaling himself in the chest.
Except from where Luke was standing, it looked like Prow-nose had missed the woman’s tripping leg. That he’d actually thrown himself onto Owun’s blade.
Why the hell would he do that?
As the vampire fell, the woman cried, “Owun, my hero.” She collapsed into the man’s arms and wept gratefully.
“Owun!” Julian threw a triumphant fist into the air. “We’re coming to aid you.” He waded into the stunned fledglings and started chopping heads.
“Retreat.” The van’s driver bellowed the order.
Vampires scattered like cockroaches, grabbing fallen pieces of their brethren as they skittered away. Two vampires grabbed Prow-nose and whisked him into the van, already accelerating rapidly from the curb.
Thorsson chased the van. Luke might have followed Thor, but the van’s speed plus the fact he had to get the silver out of his body stopped him.
So instead he went to Owun, the hero of the hour. “Congratulations. That was some rescue. You went through those vamps like butter.”
“Insane, right?” The man cocked a roguish smile at him. “Like they were taking a number to fight me. Stupid, or what?”
“Rogues aren’t the sharpest crayons in the box.” Luke smiled easily. But his thoughts were darker. These had been well-equipped vampires, not garden-variety rogues. More, they’d managed to stop the Meiers Corners males well enough.
But he had no proof this attack was anything more than a random rogue attempt to rustle protected humans. As an ou
tsider to Meiers Corners, he decided he wouldn’t say anything.
He did tuck a cautionary flag into his memory.
“Emerson.” Luke left the waif female in the arms of her rescuer and slogged toward the other Alliance males. Breathing, even the beating of his heart, was more work than it ought to be. “I need your diamagnetic repulsion unit.” Silver wasn’t normally magnetic but the DRU forced it to create a field in opposition.
Julian, talking to his small wife, turned. “Fuck, Steel. You look like Swiss cheese. Mr. Hinz! Get the DRU.”
“While I have your attention—your alarms should have gone off automatically. You need to find out why they didn’t.”
“Right. Reece. Come.” Julian used what Luke recognized as the blood call, that facility vampires had to summon to their side those whose blood they’d drunk. The older the vampire, the more potent the call.
A moment later a lanky teen appeared with a snarled, “What?”
“Run a diagnostic on the alarms. Get on it.”
The boy glowered sullenly at Julian. “Do this, Reece, do that. How come I get all the scutwork?”
Luke was surprised by the boy’s tiny pair of fangs.
“Because you’re the youngest. Do it.” Julian’s voice was heavy with compulsion. It only gave Luke a twinge of pain, but Reece visibly winced.
“Ow. Yes, master.”
Luke watched him go. “Is that your replacement lieutenant?”
“Not without a helluva lot more training first.” Julian glared after the boy. “Thank goodness our kind actually grows to our ideal age. I’d hate to think of him stuck as a teen forever.”
Luke shook his head. “Exactly why I don’t want a household. Too much work.”
“Work?” The Alliance male turned a shrewd blue gaze on him. “Or responsibility?”
Luke parried the question with one of his own. “What took you so long? I was beginning to think you were taking a vacation.”
“Don’t dis my male,” Nixie said. “What about you? Big protector hero you are, I thought you’d have everything under control.”
“Silver bullets.” Luke felt his mouth tug down. “A lot of them.”
“They were well-armed,” Julian said.
“Silver ammo isn’t cheap.”
“Neither are flashbangs.” Nixie frowned. “Especially not the kind amped up to take out vamps.”
The pair dragged into the anchor townhouse, Luke following. Mr. Hinz handed Julian the DRU. Luke braced himself as the other male held the unit to his body and turned it on.
Embedded silver shuddered…then shot through his flesh, as painful coming out as it was going in. His body felt like a thousand hornets had stung him—from the inside.
As the bullets dropped behind him, a sturdy older woman entered the foyer, took one look at the Emersons, clucked and ran off toward the kitchen.
“Tea?” Thor glided into the foyer behind them.
“Hope so,” Nixie said. “Cookies too, if we’re lucky. I’m going to check on the kids and relieve Logan from gate duty. Julian?”
Julian said, “We must debrief. Do we know who was at the door when the rogues showed up?”
“I was.” Owun, the frail blonde still clinging to him, entered behind them. “She was. Four others.”
“Bring them to the boardroom. We’ll analyze what happened. Our response was inadequate. We must do better when random rogues attack.”
Julian hadn’t worked out that these probably weren’t random rogues. Although his household had been under fire, his mate and child threatened. That would knock any male’s brain off keel.
Luke knew that from bitter experience.
The human gave a single crisp nod that had a military flavor to it, spun and left, the blonde’s adoring gaze following him.
Teenager Reece slunk back. “Did the diags. Nothing’s wrong.”
Luke stared, flabbergasted. “Then why the hell didn’t the alarm go off?”
Julian snarled at Luke. “Who knows? It’s your brother’s damned system.”
“Exactly,” Luke snarled back. “Logan and his wife are exacting about every last detail. They put the anal in computer analyst.” It was inconceivable that the system would totally fail, and fail silently at that.
But that could only mean someone had turned it off.
“Gentlemen, this is shit.” Julian was as near as he got to shouting. “Reece, Mr. Hinz, gather the able-bodied and zero the evidence.” Code for removing vampire parts and blood so that humans not in the know wouldn’t find out. “I’m going to locate Logan. Maybe he can tell me what’s going on.” His fangs flashed as he spoke. “I’d like to get this resolved before the sun comes up. I still have to chaperone my daughter’s end-of-year field trip.” He started for the stairs.
Angry knocking came from the front door.
“What is it now?” Julian whirled and stomped back into the foyer, death evident in every step.
Luke did not envy whoever had dared to interrupt the male.
Julian threw the door open, so obviously furious that Luke winced when he saw who it was.
Alexis Byornsson stood on the stoop, fists on hips, expression stony, blue eyes just short of sparking.
“You are not taking my townhouses.”
I glared up into Julian’s blue eyes…no, actually they were a distinct shade of peeved violet.
“They’re not your townhouses.” The lawyer gritted the words around canines a mite longish, and his tone promised death and dismemberment, not necessarily in that order.
Anybody else would’ve been crapping pants’ loads of bricks.
But those voice and eye tricks reminded me of hospital administrators, focused on the almighty bottom line instead of patient care. I’d battled enough of them who’d wielded tone and expression like blunt swords. I wasn’t that impressed.
Besides, I’d had a trying night, and though I ate healthy and exercised, at thirty-nine the little aches and pains of aging were knocking at my muscles and joints.
If he was cranky, I could be cranky right back.
I kicked up my jaw and met him stare for stare. “Yes, they are. Those townhouses are mine.”
“They’re not yours until you pay for them.”
“I put down earnest money plus a security deposit. Ten thousand dollars.” My throat thickened on the words. That ten thousand was all I had. As a physician I made a fair amount, but hefty school loans and a somewhat open hand with my patients, shelters and other charities insured I’d hemorrhaged most of my savings. Yet when the opportunity came, I had to jump on it with everything I had left; Lizelle needed me. “Those buildings are as good as mine, and you’d better back off.”
“You dare to tell me I should back off?” Julian surged forward—not a psychological trick this time, but real emotion goosing him.
I flinched away.
Before he could force me off the stoop with his sheer presence, long male fingers curled around his biceps, slim but insanely strong because they immediately checked him.
My body stirred at the strength in those artistic fingers.
The face belonging to the fingers appeared in the doorway a moment later, a movie star’s gorgeous close-up framed by hair of sunshine—and eyes glittering red-gold in the electric light.
Luke Steel.
My body rose up and shouted halleluiah. I gave it an annoyed whack. Sputtered, “What are you doing here?”
Luke slid past Julian onto the stoop, a lazy smile curving his lips. “Saving you from a tongue lashing.”
Tongue lashing? If it were Luke’s hot tongue…argh. “I can hold my own in an argument.”
“Even with a lawyer?”
“Especially with a lawyer.” I glared around him at Julian.
Julian glared back, violet eyes shading angry red—until Luke
popped an elbow back into his gut.
“Oof.” Julian’s eyes cooled to blue. “I don’t have time for this. Steel, deal with her.” He spun and stalked off.
Leaving me face-to-face with six-three of graceful power.
Chapter Five
Deal with her. I could think of a few ways Luke could deal with me, most pleasantly.
Then he folded his arms, plumping biceps and chest, and mere pleasant flew out the window as my pelvis went watery and my fingers itched to explore those mounds of masculine power. I looked up into his face hoping to see that he was as aroused as I was.
He gazed down at me with exasperation tinged with compassion, the kind of look my parents used to give me when I wouldn’t stick to the plan.
Damn it, I’d been sidetracked again. “Emerson!” I yelled past Luke’s body, past my own body’s annoying desires. “You can’t get out of this that easily.”
Luke said in his deep voice, “I can see you’re upset. Let’s talk somewhere private.”
This time I felt firsthand the strength in those long slim fingers as they wrapped gently around my biceps, and he tugged me down off the stoop and onto the grass beyond the circle of porch light.
My feminine engine revved double-time, and I wanted to go with him simply to see if I could make his eyes turn all the way gold.
But I had the Grand Plan and it involved getting Julian away from my townhouses. Sex was a distraction.
“Nice try, Steel. Julian!” I tried to shake loose.
Luke simply bent, putting that model-gorgeous face near mine, and breathed in. “What is it about you?” His breath out was warm on my skin. “Your scent…” He slowly drew another breath. His eyes closed, lashes long crescents against his chiseled cheekbones. His expression… Shockingly, it was bliss.
“My scent?” Brain function shorted out, and I was reduced to echoing him. I barely recognized the husky whisper emerging from my swelling lips.
His eyes opened, fired red-gold. “Your hair smells exquisite.”
He reached for me.
I can’t explain it. I’m a rational human being. Sex is pleasant.
But something about him spoke to everything in me, called deep within to hidden churning pools of lust I didn’t recognize, hadn’t even realized I had. My whole body quivered on the cusp of exquisite as his strong fingers buried in my hair, releasing the pleasant scent of my shampoo.