His attacker grunted when Jack hit him in the side but made no other sound as Jack spun on him and launched a punch. The man—or at least Jack assumed it was a man due to the tone of his voice—ducked to avoid the fist Jack launched at him.
The man moved with the grace of a vampire, and Jack would have recognized one of his kind anywhere, but something about his assailant wasn’t quite right. Though little light filtered into the pit, Jack saw his attacker was about four inches shorter than his six-foot height and slender.
The agile man spun the knife so he held it sideways before he swung it at Jack with the speed of lightning. Jack barely had enough time to lean back to avoid having his throat sliced open, but the steel kissed his neck as it whizzed past.
Before he could completely recover, his attacker swung at him again, and he jumped back to avoid evisceration. Jack couldn’t see anything beneath the hood shadowing his attacker’s face as the vampire came at him again.
This time when the knife swung at him, Jack jumped back and brought his hand down to shove the knife away. The force of his countermove twisted the man to the side, and before he could recover, Jack grabbed his shoulders and spun the man around. The vamp grunted when Jack’s arm locked around his throat.
Before Jack could get a firm hold on him, his attacker threw his head back and slammed it off Jack’s chin. At the same time, he threw an elbow into Jack’s broken rib and drove his heel into Jack’s knee. Jack’s breath exploded out of him when his knee bent backward. He almost went down but managed to stay on his feet; if he fell, this asshole would gut him.
Jack seized the wrist of his attacker when he attempted to leap from his arms. The whistle of air parting alerted him to the knife swinging upward. Jack jerked back, but the knife nearly sliced his nose as it went past him. If his attacker had been successful, the blade would have plunged under his chin.
The man didn’t hesitate before coming at him again. This time, he swung the knife so fast it became a blur. Tired of dealing with this guy, Jack didn’t try to dodge the blade again but threw his arm up on the next downward arc.
Their forearms smashed against each other and jarred Jack’s arm as it bruised his bone. His attacker issued a muffled grunt but didn’t release the knife. Jack yanked the man’s arm back, turned it over, and grasped his assailant’s wrist. He jerked it to the side and squeezed until his attacker cried out and finally released the blade.
Something about the cry made Jack’s blood run cold. That cry certainly hadn’t sounded like a man.
He grasped his assailant’s hood and yanked it back to reveal a woman with hair the color of a chestnut. Jack froze as he gazed into her mismatched eyes. She was lovely, but he’d seen far prettier women. However, something about her robbed him of his breath while his heart hammered in his chest. She was unlike anyone he’d ever seen before, and he longed to run his finger across the curve of her delicate cheekbone before tracing his thumb over her plump bottom lip.
What would she taste like?
Charlie gazed at the man who was gawking at her as if she were a walking, talking crocodile, but then, she understood his reaction as she couldn’t deny the shock that went through her when she got her first good look at him. Handsome, and with flecks of green and amber in his warm hazel eyes, he caused her heart to do an odd stuttering beat as, for a second, the pit vanished and all she saw was him.
Then Charlie recalled where she was, and anger filled her as she realized how stupid she’d been to be distracted by him. This was not a game; this was her life.
Jack’s stomach churned when he realized he’d hit a woman. He only had a second for the horror of this realization to sink in before she pulled her arm back and punched him in the face. His nose broke with a crack and blood spilled free.
“Ugh!” Jack started to grab his battered nose, but he lowered his hand when she tried to knee him in the nuts. He blocked her knee in time to save any future children from certain nonexistence, but she used the opportunity to punch him in the face again.
Jack almost howled before recalling the assholes searching for him above. They could still be close by, and his shout might draw them in. He couldn’t smell the vampires amongst them who killed innocents as a purebred vampire could, but he didn’t think this little hellion was one of those Savage vampires. She wouldn’t be hiding down here if she was involved with whatever was going on above.
Also, she’d made little noise during their fight too, as if she were trying to remain as hidden as he was. He needed to take her down before she gutted him, but now that he knew she was a woman, and most likely not involved with the bastards above, he didn’t know how to do it without hurting her.
She was gearing up to launch another punch at him when Jack tackled her. A muffled umph escaped her when they hit the ground, and her breath rushed out against his ear. He’d knocked the breath from her, but she didn’t hesitate before starting to squirm beneath him.
The woman was as slippery as an eel as she bucked her hips to dislodge him and battered her fists against his chest. He’d battled three-hundred-pound men who put up less of a fight and caused less damage than her.
He grabbed one of her wrists and pinned it over her head, but before he could secure her other hand, she seized his ear and twisted it before yanking it to the side. His ear went from feeling as if it were on fire to numb, and he wondered if she’d torn it from his head. The only thing that made him think it might still be attached was she wasn’t waving it in front of his face. He had a feeling she would proudly display that little trophy.
Grasping her other wrist, he squeezed until she finally released his ear, but not before she caused blood to trickle down the back of it and around to his chin. Her nostrils flared, and red flashed through her eyes when they latched onto his blood.
Unable to stop it, Jack experienced a visceral reaction to her hunger that caused his cock to stir. She was trying to tear away his body parts and kill him, and he wanted to nourish her, make her stronger, and fuck her. He was losing his mind; he had no idea why, but this woman rattled him.
When she went to hit him again, he pinned her hand to the ground near her other wrist. He secured them both in one hand as she hooked her leg around his back and started kicking his spine. He grabbed her leg and, pushing it to the side, held it there.
When he finally succeeded in pinning down three of her limbs, she gasped and fell back against the ground. She still jerked at her wrists, but she didn’t use her free foot to batter his back black and blue.
Between his rib and his swollen nose, every breath he released created a strange whistling sound. “I’m not the enemy,” he hissed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m not the one bleeding,” she retorted.
He blinked at her, unsure how to respond as he swung between contemplating choking her and kissing her. “I’m not the one pinned to the ground,” he countered.
Her smile never faltered as she kicked him in the back with her free foot. Jack gritted his teeth against the pain in his bruised spine. “We can’t stay like this forever, and if you release one of my hands, I’ll get free again.”
“And then what?”
“And then I’ll kill you.”
Chapter Three
Charlie studied the man who’d succeeded in pinning her to the ground. She didn’t know if she was madder at him or herself for losing the fight, but either way, she wasn’t ready to give up. She’d been fighting since she was captured and brought to this island three years ago, and she would fight until the day she died.
He said he wasn’t the enemy, but the problem with this place was it was difficult to tell who was and wasn’t the enemy. She wasn’t about to take this guy at face value just because he said so.
She calculated ways to get out of this mess as she took in the blood streaking his face and the dark circles rimming his eyes from the nose she broke. She assumed his nose might be nice when it wasn’t swollen to nearly twice its normal size, but it was impossibl
e to tell now.
In the dim light filtering through the hole, she saw the malice and annoyance glimmering in his eyes, but he hadn’t hurt her, and at this point, he could kill her.
Which led her back to the belief he wasn’t an enemy. She would be dead, or he would be hauling her off to become part of the hunt again, and then he would search the tunnel behind her. He may not know it was there yet, but he would discover it soon.
A chill ran down her back as she recalled the tunnel behind her and where it led. Dylan! He was back there, and with the pit open, he was exposed and vulnerable. She could not leave her son unprotected.
Charlie studied her enemy more carefully as she became aware of the heat of his hands around her wrists and the warmth of his body against hers. Not the time!
Still, she couldn’t deny the thrill of attraction she felt toward this man. She glared at him while he studied her. She was willing to bet it wasn’t every day this vamp got his ass kicked, and she’d done a pretty impressive number on him.
But it didn’t matter how much blood she’d drawn, she was on the bottom, and he had won. She’d fought a fair number of vampires since becoming one, and she never lost. If she had lost, she’d be dead or somewhere being tortured to find out how she survived this long on the island.
She’d never reveal her secrets to the bastards who ran this place, but torture was not on her bucket list. Nope, she’d rather be killed outright. But if she died, she would be leaving Dylan behind. At the possibility of never seeing him again, her heart constricted and tears pricked her eyes, but no way would she shed one in front of this guy.
Anger over her inability to have seen this guy coming filled her. It was only fair that if she had to bear the burden of seeing bad shit happening to others, she should be able to see when bad shit was about to happen to her. But nope, she’d been cursed with an ability that never gave her an ounce of foretelling before her life made a U-turn.
Some warning about this guy might have been fantastic. Or better, if she had some notice that while walking home from work, she and Dylan would be jumped by a couple of vamps and tossed into this hell where no one was meant to survive.
Staring at the woman, Jack practically saw the wheels spinning in her head as she looked from him to her hands to the hole above him. If he eased his grip on her, she’d be on him like a Tasmanian devil on speed. She may be slender, but she packed a punch, and he felt the strength of her muscles beneath his hands.
He should be trying to figure out how to get out of this without losing his teeth; instead, he found himself admiring the unusual colors of her eyes. Clear and bright, one was a pure Kelly green while the other was an indigo blue, and both stared at him like he was enemy number one.
“I’m not the enemy,” he said again.
Charlie’s mouth pursed as her eyes raked his lithe frame. “Hmm.”
Jack felt his frustration mounting. “Look, if you’re fighting the assholes who attacked my friends and me before throwing us in cages, then we are on the same side.”
“I’ll be the judge of what side we’re on.”
“Has anyone ever strangled you before?” he asked in exasperation.
“No, but I’m sure many have wanted to.”
“I’m sure of it too.”
Charlie grinned at him. She was becoming increasingly convinced he was another one of the hunted, but she enjoyed annoying him. Because of his broken nose, his voice became squeaky when his annoyance with her mounted.
“How do I know I can trust you?” he countered.
“You can’t,” she replied, and he glowered at her.
Jack didn’t know why he wanted this woman to trust him, but he disliked her wariness of him. “I’m Jack.”
“And?”
Jack’s jaw clenched, but before he could respond, a noise from above pulled his attention away from her. The woman went still beneath him as a branch broke and then voices drifted to him.
“I told you I heard something,” someone said from above, and a shadow fell over the hole.
Charlie bucked her hips to get Jack’s attention. “Let me up.”
Jack hesitated. If he let her up and she turned on him, he’d have to fend off her and whoever was above. And if she were on their side, he’d be in trouble, but he couldn’t remain sitting on her while he fought them.
“What is it?” another voice asked.
“It’s a hole,” the first said, as if the questioner was the dumbest thing on the planet.
“Fuck you,” the second one growled.
“Go down there.”
“You go down there.”
“Let me up,” Charlie whispered, drawing Jack’s attention back to her. When she saw the doubt in his eyes, she realized she had to offer him an olive branch or they could end up dead. “I have two stakes inside my sweatshirt. Take one and arm yourself.”
He had no choice; he had to let her go and trust her not to stab him in the back. Reluctantly, he released her leg. She didn’t take the opportunity to start trying to kick his spine to pieces again. Instead, she remained unmoving as he felt over her sweatshirt for the stakes.
“Lower,” she muttered as her gaze remained fixed on the hole. “They’re coming.”
Unable to find the stakes, Jack rolled off her as the first vamp landed inside the hole.
“Well, lookie at what we have here,” the vampire said as its red gaze ran over them. “Did we interrupt the foreplay?”
Charlie rolled to the side and put her hand down as she surveyed the enormous vampire who’d entered the pit. He had to be a Savage as he wore the security coat and looked quite capable of dealing out the death the Savages loved to mete out. He had a good foot on her five-eight height and about two hundred pounds on her one-hundred-thirty-pound frame.
If this thing got a hold of her, he could crush her in one hand. Reaching into her sweatshirt, she pulled out the two stakes. She glanced at Jack as the second Savage landed inside the hole.
“Here.” She tossed him one of the stakes as the two assholes grinned at them.
Jack caught the stake and turned his attention back to the two vamps. The second one wasn’t as large as the first, but they were both bigger than Jack.
“I think they’re lovebirds,” the first vamp said.
“Who messed up his face?” the second asked.
“No one. I’m always this handsome,” Jack replied.
The two vamps scowled at him as Charlie chuckled while edging to the side. Air from the open tunnel behind her flowed against her back, but she didn’t dare turn and flee. At least one of the Savages would follow her, and if they survived the traps in the tunnel, Charlie would lead them right to the others. If, for some reason they didn’t chase her, they would report what they’d discovered here to their bosses, and the small sanctuary she’d found in the middle of this hell would vanish.
She couldn’t risk that happening.
Charlie maintained her position in front of the tunnel as the second Savage turned and ran his gaze leisurely over her body. Her hand clenched on her stake when she saw the interested gleam in his eyes. This asshole had a rude awakening coming to him.
Then, the vamp charged her with its shoulders hunched forward and fangs bared. Charlie had seen such attack methods before and knew how to handle them. She didn’t move until the vamp was nearly on top of her, and then she spun to the side in a graceful move she could credit on the years of ballet her parents made her endure.
The vamp would have barreled past her and into the tunnel if she hadn’t thrown out her foot and delivered a solid kick to his gut. He grunted and stumbled back; she may be a lot smaller than him, but she knew where to deliver a blow that would stagger her opponent.
Before he could recover, Charlie leapt up and punched him in the cheek. The blow knocked him to the side, but she still didn’t have a good view of his heart so she could stake him. She wished she had her knife on her, but it lay in the center of the pit where she dropped it.
&nb
sp; From now on, she wouldn’t go anywhere without at least two of her knives, but she’d gotten complacent. Things were always quiet the few weeks before a hunt started as the Savages in control were occupied with filling their cages. She cursed herself for her stupidity now. Never again!
The other vamp circled Jack like a shark about to devour a seal. Jack grinned at the vamp as if he wasn’t a whole person larger than him. Charlie mentally shrugged over his cavalier attitude. If the giant was distracted by using Jack like a chew toy, she could come up behind him and kill him, once she dispatched this Savage of course.
When the Savage spun toward her, Charlie smashed her foot into his knee. It buckled backward, and the vamp almost hit the ground. She leapt up and swung her leg down; driving her heel into his back, she knocked the Savage to his hands and knees.
Her parents would shit themselves if they could see what she’d turned all those years of endless ballet training into. She’d despised every single one of those lessons, but she learned young to shut up and take it. Whining got her sent to her room and, unlike other kids where sometimes being locked in their room wasn’t much of a punishment, she didn’t have anything in there to distract her other than her bed and clothes.
Charlie couldn’t recall having toys as a baby, but she doubted she ever did as she certainly didn’t have them when she was a child. Being sent to her room was torture as she stayed there until she relented to her parents’ demands or they decided she’d served her time.
One time, after going to her lesson and refusing to dance in the hopes she could finally break free of ballet, she was kept in the room for three days with only oatmeal, bread, and water for dinner. Over the years, she adjusted to not eating as much as she would like. Her mother watched her food intake like a hawk to make sure she maintained her weight, but those three days were the worst she ever experienced.
Starving, and with her spirit not entirely broken but definitely beaten, she’d given in and begged to be let out. She promised never to refuse to dance again, and her parents finally set her free.
Unforeseen: The Vampire Awakenings, Book 9 Page 2