Unfortunately, that was all he did. Mark thrust the gun into Bree’s hand. At least it would keep Ferrel at bay. The others would require something more old-school. They were circling now, joining their friend to form a snarling pack.
Mark’s own beast stirred, and he let it rise. The intoxicating thrill of the hunt swamped him, ripping a feral growl from his throat. He crouched, hands raised to rend and tear. This was nothing Bree or her boy should ever see, but it was the only way. He had to defend his own, even if doing that meant showing his dark side.
One of the faux-vampires made a lunge for Bree.
Reason snapped. Mark’s fangs slipped down and he sprang. Vandyke tried to block him, but Mark slid under his guard, landing a sharp jab to the man’s windpipe. Vandyke reeled back, choking. Apparently these fake vamps still breathed like ordinary humans. Mark would remember that.
They probably needed their heads, too. Mark moved to slide around behind him, but Vandyke made a knife appear from his sleeve. It was a smooth move, and the silver blade sliced into Mark’s ribs, probing upward for the heart. The metal burned, but Mark choked back the cry of pain. Instead, he twisted away, grabbing Vandyke’s head from behind. A quick, fierce wrench, and the neck snapped with the sound of a breaking twig.
Mark stumbled back as the body dropped. Vandyke had missed his heart, but he’d done damage. Mark wrenched the knife from his side, betting a sharp blade would work on these monsters whether or not they had a vampire’s sensitivity to silver. Mark wheeled to grab his next opponent.
That death wasn’t nearly so clean.
Chapter 21
The sound of the chopper grew louder, dust billowing up as it landed on the swath of grass and dirt beyond the parked cars. Bree was curled up behind the wooden ticket booth, Jonathan wide-eyed and silent on her lap. She bent over him, shielding him from the sudden wind. She heard car doors slamming, then saw the Escalade barrel toward the road, Ferrel at the wheel, his one surviving sidekick riding shotgun. Fled to fight another day.
Cold, heavy dread rooted her to the patch of dirt where she sat, as if it were the last safe place in the world. The horror she’d just seen had crushed the last of her strength. There was no hope of making sense of any of it—fangs, claws, men who were suddenly ravening beasts tearing flesh and bone. Hallucination? Hysteria? Or reality? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay there. There were fanged killers, right over there, and she had a child to protect.
If only she could stop shaking and act. She’d survived so long on bravado, but that pig-headed refusal to lie down and die felt perilously brittle right now. Dig deep. Run. Keep your boy safe from the monsters. It was the only thing a mother could do.
Slowly, she leaned far enough to see around the edge of the booth. Automatically, she looked for Mark first. He was poised by the gate, snarling at the disappearing cloud of dust where Ferrel’s car had been. His muscles strained, as if he was about to hurtle after the Escalade and tear it to pieces. Yellow eyes glinted—no, glowed—with savage hatred. His lips were drawn back, exposing sharp, white fangs. Unlike the other creatures, everything about him looked in balance, natural, lethal as a panther ready to spring. Almost beautiful—except Mark’s face, clothes, hands, everything were covered in blood. He’d torn the second man—thing—limb from limb. Ferrel’s creatures had claws and fangs. But so had Mark.
A stab of anger pierced her, a sense of profound betrayal. I trusted you, Mark Winspear. All the time she had trusted him, he was really this thing and she had put her life, her body and her baby in his hands. The man she’d come to know was a lie.
What else about him was false? Had he been preparing a trap for her all this time? Had he been luring her and Jonathan—with the book he’d so wanted—into that mysterious medical facility? What kind of place was it, anyway?
Bree pulled her head back around the corner, panting quickly, on her way to a panic attack. What are those guys? What is Mark?
Bree’s face went numb as the shock of understanding washed through her. Fangs. Claws. Glowing eyes. Vampires? Is that it? She’d grown up around Hollywood. She knew the legends—Dracula and the rest. Mark even had the trace of an accent. He barely ate. He hated sun. He was insanely strong and fast and mysterious. Please let me be wrong, this is just too weird. But she didn’t have a better theory.
It figured. People she trusted disappeared or died or turned out to have feet of clay. Every time that happened, she had been plunged into disaster. Her parents, boyfriend after boyfriend, Jonathan’s father, Jessica. Somehow, whether they loved her or not, they’d all found a way of leaving her with a mess. But she’d never had one literally turn into a monster before. This was definitely a first.
I trusted him. I slept with him. And it had been the best sex she’d ever had. But wasn’t that just part of the myth, too? Vampires were the best seducers out there? And dead? Oh, good grief. Crazy. This is crazy. Bree, get out of here!
By the time she had finished the thought, she was standing with Jonathan on her hip and Custard’s puppy nest slung over her shoulder. She had no money and no car, but flight had always been her go-to answer. She’d always figured it out.
She ran for her life, just as frightened as when she’d run through the hail of bullets to the floatplane. Dead ahead was a low fence that separated the grassy walkway from the back of the rides. If she could climb over that, she could take cover in the noisy commotion of the midway.
Or so she thought. Maybe a few gunshots could be hidden under the noise of the roller coaster, but the combination of a helicopter, gunfire and dismemberment drew a crowd. Fairgoers were leaning against the fence, cell phones out, blocking her escape.
“Hey, isn’t that the girl Prince Kyle was dating?” someone shouted to their friend.
“Nah, she was hotter. And what would she be doing here, anyway?”
Good question. Almost to the fence, Bree risked a look behind her.
The chopper had landed. Men clad from head to foot in black uniforms—even their faces were heavily shaded—were waving back the handful of bystanders who had climbed over the fence. Others were packing up the bodies.
“Cut!” a man in a black uniform was yelling. “Cut, that’s a wrap!”
Confused, Bree looked around for cameras, booms or any of the personnel that made a film shoot run. There was someone with a video camera, but it was a tiny, handheld thing.
“Beautiful!” the man in black yelled. “Marvelous. Such verismo.”
Realism? She nearly laughed—or gagged. And then she got it. People shot films, big and small, all the time, but few in the crowd would actually know how it was done. As long as the public thought these guys were making a movie, it would buy the cleanup crew enough time to get away. As the old saying went, people saw what they expected to see.
The audacity of it staggered her, but she wasn’t surprised. Her surprise-o-meter had exploded when the fangs came out. She turned back to find a way over the fence, and nearly walked into Mark. A wild need to scream and thrash came over her, to get away from the monster at all costs.
“You’re needed back at the set,” he said in a careful voice, catching her arm.
She had just enough brain left to form rational words. “I can’t go with you. Not after that.”
“Bree.” It was the only word he said, but it made her slow down.
She should have looked at the blood and gore, but it was his expression that stole her breath. After tearing his enemy to pieces, she would have expected triumph, or rage, or even icy superiority. Instead, sad weariness dragged at his features, as if he’d finally seen too much.
“Mark?” she said softly, not expecting—and maybe not wanting—a reply.
But of course he heard her. “I’m sorry.”
“You protected us. I get it. But—”
“I didn’t want you to see t
hat.”
She didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t want me to see him. To see him for what he was. This was what he’d been holding back last night.
Tears ached, hot behind her eyes. He had defended them once again, but this time it had cost him more than money or cleverness or courage. He had sacrificed something deeper, something she had no right to ask of him. And now this was the consequence—blood and alienation.
“You didn’t have to,” she said weakly.
“Didn’t I?” His gaze was almost hostile.
Bree’s throat closed, choked with unshed tears. Beneath this new fear of him was a thick layer of guilt.
He’d killed for her. Twice. He’d torn another man apart with nothing but hands and teeth.
And she’d seen him stabbed, but he was standing there as though nothing happened. Why wasn’t he dead or bleeding? It wasn’t natural.
Mark was a brutal, bloody killer and by rights she should be terrified of him. And she was. Except she owed him everything.
Bree closed her eyes, scraping her fragmented wits together. Whatever he is, he protected my child. And Mark had promised to cure her son. At the end of the day, that was all that mattered to her.
Except he’s a monster, the voice in her head argued back. By every logical rule, she should get her child away from him.
She didn’t know what to think. Bree sank to the grass, rocking her sick, silent child, too exhausted and bewildered to stand anymore. “I don’t know what to do.”
Mark crouched beside her, keeping his voice quiet. They were near the crowd, too easily overheard for this kind of conversation. “Trust me.”
“I can’t.” I don’t trust anybody. Every time I do, it destroys me.
“Why not? What do you think I’m going to do?”
“You tore those men apart. What do you expect me to think?”
He pulled back as if she’d bitten him. “That I prevented them from killing you and stealing your child.”
“How do I know you’re not going to do that to me?”
“I’m not a rabid beast.” The words were ice-sharp.
Swearing under her breath, Bree clenched her teeth, doing her best not to cry. She’d hurt him. He hated her. But then what did she expect? What did he expect? This was too far outside her world.
Bree realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut when she felt someone between her and the sun. She looked up to see the man in black who’d been playing director.
“This is Brianna Meadows,” Mark said, his expression closed down, as if he had locked up his thoughts. At some point, he’d wiped some of the blood off his face and hands. She was grateful for that much, though the sight and smell of it on his clothes still made her queasy.
Feeling too vulnerable on the ground, Bree got to her feet to confront the other man. He was the tall, dark and handsome type that made her think of cowboy movies, or something involving flying aces and daring escapes—but he had that same otherness as Jessica and Mark. Fairies? Vampires? What secrets did this one have?
“Hello,” she said, hearing the caution in her voice.
The man gave a professional smile, with just a dash of down-home charm. “My name is Sam Ralston. We’re taking you and your boy to our facility. It’s secure, and we have a great hospital there.”
“Please say you still want to go,” Mark said softly.
She heard the rest of the sentence: even after you’ve seen what I really am. He was hiding behind that blank, closed mask. Cautious of her opinion.
It was too much. Bree’s vision blurred, tears finally finding release. She thought of his words back at the cabin: Knights were overrated, if you ask me. If you want to protect a treasure, ask a dragon. And what a dragon he was. “You said you’d get us to safety. You did it.”
He gave her a long look, the mask slipping as a thousand emotions chased through his eyes. “Of course I did. I never say what I don’t mean.”
Chapter 22
What would have happened if she’d said she wouldn’t go? It was a good question. Bree had never been a gambler—at least not the type that went to Vegas—but she suspected that conversation would not have gone well. The men from the Company wasted no time getting her into their big black chopper.
Bree barely remembered the helicopter ride to the Varney Center, just that it seemed to take years. Jonathan was in her lap. He had fallen asleep, his breath coming in light, quick pants. She didn’t notice her hometown slipping past below them, or the black-clad men crowded into the other seats. She was aware of their presence, outwardly friendly but shimmering with potential danger. They didn’t matter. Only her son was relevant. Her son, and Mark.
He approached only twice, both times to check Jonathan’s vitals. He didn’t try to meet her eyes.
“He’s getting worse, isn’t he?” she asked softly.
She was trying to see the doctor before her and not the monster that had torn a living body to pieces before her eyes. But memory kept trying to superimpose the nightmare over Mark’s handsome features, and no amount of willpower could make it go away. She was grateful he’d slipped a jacket over the bloody shirt, but his jeans were still spattered. The sight of it sent a prickle of sickly sweat over her skin.
She prayed she’d keep it together as Mark felt Jonathan’s temperature, then bent to put an ear to the boy’s chest. “His core temperature is starting to drop.”
“What does that mean?”
Jonathan stirred in his sleep, whimpering.
Mark looked up, worry in his dark eyes. He put a hand over hers for the briefest second before he pulled away, as if aware his touch might not be welcome. “I’m going to radio ahead so we don’t waste any time.”
He moved away, leaving Bree even more anxious.
While Mark was at the front, Sam Ralston nudged Mark’s backpack with his foot. “What’s he got in there? I think it’s alive.”
With a guilty start, Bree realized she’d forgotten all about the dog. “Jonathan’s puppy. Is he all right?”
Sam bent down, pulling open the zipper. A smile lit up his face, making him look genuinely friendly. “Hey, there, little fella. Oh, he looks fine.”
Custard’s head popped out, eyes bright with curiosity, and he gave a tiny yap, and Sam grinned. Apparently even special ops vampires liked cute baby animals. Every head in the chopper swiveled to look.
Including Jonathan’s. His eyes blinked open sleepily. “Custard?” he asked.
He spoke! The word was slurred and rough, but Bree understood it perfectly. Her heart lurched in her chest, giddy and aching and broken all at once. “Yes,” she said shakily. “Custard’s here.”
She looked up, wishing Mark had been there to hear. For once, her wish was granted. He was paused halfway back to his seat, eyes wide with surprise. Good. He’d heard it, too. That meant she hadn’t imagined it. Bree caught his gaze.
Triumph flashed between them. Mark had been right about the puppy, because now Jonathan was holding out his arms, asking for the thing he wanted most in the world. “Custard!”
Mark didn’t smile or act as if anything was different, but she could see his happiness in the buoyancy of his movements. Wordlessly, he picked up the puppy and held him so Jonathan could pat the soft fur. Custard wiggled happily. Bree felt Jonathan relax against her.
Sam’s eyebrows shot up. “Isn’t this a bit movie-of-the-week for you, Winspear?”
“Shut up,” said Mark in flat tones, handing the dog to Sam.
Jonathan was too relaxed. Not moving. “Mark?” Bree whispered. Panic gnawed at her, making everything sharp and bright. “What’s wrong?”
“Get him on the floor!” Mark snapped. “I need to do CPR.”
Minutes later, they landed on a roof. Mark raced out first, Jonathan in his arms. Bree was right
behind him, aware of someone yelling at her to keep her head down and away from the rotor blades. She could feel the heat of the rooftop through her shoes, even though much of the roof had a sunshade. It was a lot warmer here than it had been up north.
Beneath the protective cover, there were more men in black uniforms, as well as a bunch in white coats. Two men and a woman in scrubs rushed toward them with a gurney. Mark put the boy down, and instantly the others converged, one with a breathing mask. They started to push the gurney away.
“Wait for me!” Bree cried, running now. There were glass doors ahead, sheltering a pair of rooftop elevators from the wind. The gurney was sliding into an elevator. “Wait!”
But there were men in her way, big men in black. “Please stay here, ma’am.”
“No, I have to get to my son!” She shoved at somebody, trying to get past, but it was like pushing against a mountain.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Protocol.”
In a matter of seconds, Mark and Jonathan were gone.
Panic ate at her insides. Bree stood alone in the mass of milling men, Custard in her arms. Beyond the roof, L.A. stretched in a blanket of haze, at once familiar and too alien for words.
Sam touched her arm and leaned close to make himself heard over the din of voices and rotors. “If anyone can do something for your son, it’s Winspear. You know that, don’t you?”
Bree nodded, because that at least made sense. “Are you all vampires?”
He winced at her blunt statement, but then shrugged it off. “No, not all of us. There are some humans here, too. My fiancée, for one.”
Bree’s jaw dropped.
“And don’t forget your token minority werewolf,” said another voice. Bree turned to see a tall man with fair hair and Nordic features. He grinned. “My name is Faran Kenyon, and I’ll be your guide through Castle Dracula.”
Custard started barking excitedly, his stub of a tail waggling like mad. “Hello, little brother.” Kenyon bent down to scratch Custard’s ears.
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