Blood Vengeance (16 page)

Nik looked like he was about to say more, but then closed his mouth and gave him a nod. “Good. Ok. Well, if you don’t need anything else, I’m going to head back downstairs. I got a hold of our security guys here and they’re bringing me the video footage from the garage. See if we can see any of our missing Hunters leaving the building. I don’t know that it will give us any clues, but it won’t hurt to look.”

Luukas nodded in agreement. “Let me know if you find anything.”

He assured him that he would. Then, with a smile and a wave at Keira, he was gone.

It seemed her line of questioning had been deterred by the arrival of the pizza, so Luukas left her to eat, wandering over to the windows. He loved looking out at the lights of the city.
His
city. Once.

He rubbed the back of his neck as he remembered that he’d meant to ask Nikulas about his vampires, and what, if anything, they knew about him being gone. He would have to remember to do that.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he again fought down the ever-present feeling of panic that’d been welling up within him since coming home.

Would they notice that he was different? He had to be different. Although he was feeling slightly more…sane, he was having a hard time recalling the vampire he used to be before he was taken.

He only knew what he was now, and that he was a far cry from what he used to be.

Chapter 21

Keira

Keira had never tasted anything better in her life than this greasy, cheesy pizza. Her eyes practically rolled back in her head as she tore off another huge bite, burning the top of her mouth, but she didn’t care. She didn't even care if she couldn't keep it down. It was the first real junk food she'd had in years.

She kept an eye on Luukas as she ate, concern creasing her brow. He looked so lost, standing at the windows as he was. He nearly always looked that way, except when he was interacting with her.

And that had been some serious "interacting" that had gone on just a bit ago. No wonder she was so hungry.

Most girls would probably be all kinds of freaking out right about now. Finding out that a traumatized vampire wanted to either kill you or keep you “to have and to feed from” forever could do that to a girl. But Keira knew what the deal was. A vampire claiming his mate was not something to be taken lightly. And she could try fighting it, or she could accept the fact that she belonged with Luukas, and enjoy the hot vampire sex.

It wasn’t like she didn’t know him. They’d spent the last seven years going through hell and back together. Hell that she was largely responsible for. If he could get over the urge to kill her, she might even get the chance to make it up to him.

Besides, would she ever meet another male that she was this attracted to? From the moment he'd stepped from his vehicle that early summer night, she'd been drawn to him, and she still was, more so now than ever.

Unable to squeeze any more food into her belly, she regretfully closed the box and put it in the fridge for later. Her vampire was still deep in thought by the window, so she went in and brushed her teeth again. Twice.

Returning to the main room, she found he hadn't moved.

“What’re you thinking about?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, his vacant eyes running over her face and body, and then went back to contemplating the city lights.

Well, obviously he wasn’t going to be very talkative tonight, so she wandered over to the office. She thought she remembered seeing some books lined up on one of the shelves. Grabbing one without even looking at the title, she took it over to the couch and curled up to read. Flipping it over, she saw the title, “The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe.” Good choice.

She read throughout the night, one eye on Poe and one on Luukas, taking occasional breaks to refill her teacup and make the grocery list.

She didn’t know how he could stay so perfectly still for such a long time. It unnerved her. But every time she tried to engage him in a conversation, he would just give her that vacant look, if he bothered to acknowledge her at all.

Until finally, as the first rays of the dawn were peeking over the horizon, he left the window and without a word, set her book aside, lifted her off the couch, and carried her into his room with him. Once there, he placed her gently on the bed and crawled in beside her. Pulling her towards him, he tucked her against the front of him and wrapped himself protectively around her.

She didn’t complain, knowing it would get her nowhere, but snuggled down into the soft bed, and drifted off to ravens knocking on chamber doors.

***

Keira groaned. It was so cold. She should get up and move around, but she was so tired. She just wanted to sleep. It was always so cold down here in the bowels of Leeha’s mountain.

“Keira!”

Her teeth rattled as someone shook her, hard.

“Keira! Wake up!”

Luukas? He was free from the chains? Oh, thank the gods! But how did he get free?

“Fuck! What do I do? What do I do?”

His voice came to her from everywhere at once. She wished he would hold still. It was making her head pound.

She tried to ask him to get a blanket for her, but nothing came out but another pathetic sounding moan. What was wrong with her? Why was she so tired?

It was that idiot guard. He’d taken too much blood.

She heard a door open, then another, and then heard Luukas screaming for Nikulas again. She didn’t want another pizza; she still had some leftover in the fridge. She needed to tell him.

And why was he calling Nikulas? Had Leeha captured him too?

“Luuk…” she rasped.

Her throat hurt. No wonder she couldn’t talk. She must be getting a sore throat. Not surprising considering the quality of the air down here.

She tried again, “Luukas.”

“Shhhh. Don’t talk. Nik is on his way, he’ll know what to do.”

The door burst open and she heard the heavy tread of boots coming across the floor.

“Oh, shit. What happened?”

“I don’t know!” Luukas’ voice was strained. “I woke up and she was like this. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She wouldn’t wake up. I don’t know what to do.”

She felt a cool hand on her forehead, and heard a low growl as it rested there.

“Don’t growl at me, dude. She has a fever.”

“From what?” Luukas gritted out.

“From this.” The cool hand on her forehead gently turned her head to the side. “This bite is infected. Look at it.”

She winced as someone gently probed at the wound on her neck. Stupid thing, why wouldn’t it heal?

Damn vampire.

“What do I do?” Luukas asked.

Why were they talking about her like she wasn’t even there? She struggled to open her eyes to tell them she was awake, only to find two handsome faces peering down at her anxiously.

“Keira?” Nikulas leaned closer. “Can you hear me?”

What kind of question was that? Of course she could hear him. She wasn’t deaf, just tired.

“I’m cold,” she managed to say.

Luukas immediately flew from the room, returning with an armful of blankets that he then proceeded to pile on top of her.

Nikulas glanced sideways at him. “Luuk, we need to get this fever down, man. She’s burning up. I don’t know that more blankets are a good idea.”

“She’s cold,” he stated in a tone that brooked no argument.

“I know, but we need to get the fever down. Hey, come here a second.” Grabbing his brother’s arm, he dragged him over to the doorway, and asked in a low voice, “You’ve fed from her, right?”

Luukas gave him a sharp nod.

“You haven't offered your blood to her? Completed the bond?”

The bond?
Keira frowned as she huddled under her mound of blankets, shivering as she watched them from under heavy eyelids.

Luukas tore his eyes from her to look askance at his brother. “The bond. The mating bond? That isn’t real.”

Nikulas chewed the inside of his cheek, heaving a sigh. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” Clapping his brother on the shoulder to get his attention again, he looked him directly in the eyes. “It
is
real, man. And you need to complete it, or I don’t know if she’s gonna make it, and then neither will you.”

Luukas straightened to his full height. “No.”

“No?” The shocked expression on Nikulas’ face was almost funny. Surely he’d faced his brother’s stubbornness before in all of their years together?

“NO.”

“But,” Nikulas glanced sideways at her, lowering his voice. “That bite is really infected. I could try to get her some antibiotics, but I don’t know that they’ll help much. She’s undernourished, and with you feeding from her, I don’t know that she’ll pull through without your blood.”

Luukas said nothing.

“Luukas!” Nikulas shouted, all caution that she would hear him aside. “She might
die
, man. Do you get that?”

Luukas turned cold, black eyes to where she lay on the bed. “Then let her die.” He left the room then, leaving Nikulas staring after him, dumbfounded.

Shaking his head with disbelief, he came back over to the bed, and adjusted the blankets over her. “I don't get him. One minute he's freaking out because you're cold, and the next he's sentencing you to death."

"Not his fault," she told him, her voice raw. "He wants to kill me, but I'm too irresistible."

Nik chuckled. "I’m going to go get you some antibiotics. I’ll be right back. Hang in there, ok?”

She gave him a weak nod and attempted to smile.

Luukas didn’t return after Nikulas left. Although she'd hoped their time together last night would've helped matters, it seemed he hadn’t overcome the urge to have her dead. And, actually, going this way would be ideal for his revenge plan. She would be dead and he wouldn’t have the guilty conscious of being responsible for it.

Although, how much guilt would a vampire who’d killed his own Master actually have?

This really wouldn’t be such a bad way to go
, she mused again. Definitely better than Luukas snapping her neck and draining her dry. Well, the draining wouldn’t be so bad, she kind of liked that part, but the neck snapping wouldn’t be pleasant at all.

She would really appreciate a drink before she went though. And she needed to talk to Nikulas about Emma, ask him to look out for her. She had no one else.

Her last thought before she drifted off again was of her sister, running through the field in her short, billowy, summer skirt, laughing as Keira chased her.

Chapter 22

Dante

“Would you drive faster? We don’t know how long he’s going to stay out. And this is one mother fucker I do NOT want to tangle with.”

“Relax, he’s chained. Even if he wakes up, he can’t do anything. Besides, the sun is coming up. He’ll be dead till sunset.”

Dante kept his eyes closed and his breathing steady, taking stock of his body for injuries while he listened to the conversation going on in front of him. Other than the awkwardness of being chained with his arms behind him and his knees bent so his heels were touching his ass, he appeared to be uninjured. Good.

He remained prone, listening, waiting for the right moment to let them know that he was awake, keeping the element of surprise on his side.

And it was definitely “them”, plural, he was dealing with. He remembered a driver and two male passengers. They had jumped out of a black SUV to “check on him” after the driver had barely missed sideswiping him, right in the parking garage of the apartments he lived under. One had attempted to sneak up on him, and when he’d confronted him, he’d made the mistake of turning his back on the other one, who had jabbed a needle in his neck. Whatever the fuck was in there had knocked him out cold.

“Are you sure about that?” The third one confirmed his presence. Three males. Not that it mattered. Dante had no issue with killing a female.

“Both of you shut up. We’re almost to the plane.”

Dante quietly tested the chains. They were silver. He could tell by the drain on his muscles, which meant these fuckers knew what he was.

However, they hadn’t done enough homework on the vampire they were dealing with if they believed silver chains would be enough to restrain
him
. Or sunlight, for that matter. As disciplined as he was, he could stay awake all day if necessary.

Slitting his eyes open just enough to be able to see, Dante confirmed that no one else had joined the group while he'd been napping. He saw only the driver, an older man with a bald head, and two more sitting behind him, both of them younger and inexperienced looking. Dante himself was trussed up on the floor of the vehicle just behind the two passengers where the third row of seats should have been.

As inconspicuously as he could, he took a deep breath, scenting them.

Humans? Whoever had ordered this had sent
humans
to capture a vampire?

A sinister smile spread across his face.

With a quick, hard yank, he broke the chain attached to his cuffed wrists.

“Fuck! Fuck! He’s awake!”

“He broke his chains! Stop the fucking car!”

The vehicle swerved as the driver peered over his shoulder to see what they were panicking about. Dante took the temporary distraction to reach down and break the chain between his cuffed ankles while the humans braced themselves for a crash that never came.

Moving faster than any of them could track, he rose up to one knee, and broke the first one’s neck. Wrenching it to the side, he sank his fangs into the still-pulsing artery, sucking down great mouthfuls of blood. Throwing the body aside, his eyes shot over to the other male, giving him a bloody grin when he screamed.

Suddenly, a ray of morning sun hit him directly on the face, as the driver opened the wide sunroof before he had the chance to snap the other’s neck.

Hissing in pain, Dante retreated quickly to the shadows at the back of the vehicle. He kept his eyes trained on his prey as he crouched there, blood dripping from his mouth, his smoking skin already healing.

Like a cornered animal, he waited.

“Shut up!” The driver screamed at his hysterical companion. He glanced back at the dead one. “Fuck. Fuck!”

The passenger finally got it under control and took off his seat belt and slid off the seat, placing his back against the middle console. Wide eyes zeroed in on Dante's exposed fangs and stayed there. “What the hell do we do now?” he asked the driver in a high voice.

“I dunno. Let me fuckin' think a minute. We’re ok as long as the sunroof is open. He can’t get past it without becoming a shish kabob.”

“You also said the chains would fucking hold him!”

“I was told that they would,” the driver spat.

“But how are we going to get him into the plane? He’ll kill us as soon as we’re out of the sun.”

“I don’t know! I said let me think!”

They drove on in silence, the human in the back never taking his eyes from Dante.

He distantly wondered why? Did he prefer to see death coming for him? If he were the human, he would rather not know. He’d rather die instantly and unaware like his friend had.

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of a large airplane hanger in the middle of nowhere, but didn’t drive in.

By this time, the passenger watching him was nothing but a statue of silent fear. Dante could smell it oozing from his pores.

“Stay here,” the driver told him. “I’ll be right back.”

“Are you fucking crazy? You can’t leave me here with him!”

“You’ll be fine as long as you stay where you are. I’ve got guns in my car, brought ‘em along just in case. I won’t be long.”

The driver got out, slamming the door behind him.

Dante cocked his head as the passenger slid farther away from his dead friend and closer to the door, putting his hand on the handle.

Dante leaned forward, placing his hands on the floor. “You don’t really think you could escape before I got to you, do you?”

The human’s eyes bulged from their sockets as the stench of urine filled the small space. Dante sneered, inhaling the sour smell of the human’s terror.

Just then, the driver returned, yanking the door open, calling an end to his fun with the passenger.

“Jesus Christ! Did you piss yourself? Really? Get the fuck out of the car!” He grabbed the passenger by the back of the shirt and yanked him out into the sunshine, handing him something.

“Take this, and get into the drivers seat. We’ll drive in with him and I’ll get him onto the plane.”

Walking around to the rear of the vehicle, he opened the back door while the other one got into the driver's side. Dante shrunk back away from sun, now caught in the middle between its rays.

“See this, asshole?” The first driver pointed a semi-automatic pistol directly at Dante, and pulled back the hammer. “I’d behave if I were you.” Stepping up onto the hitch with the door open, he hung onto the roof with the other hand and told the driver to go.

Dante barked out a laugh as the vehicle pulled slowly forward. “A gun won’t stop me,
asshole
.”

“This one will. It’s made with special bullets. Exploding bullets, that’ll blow a hole in you so big it’ll cut you clean in half.”

Narrowing his eyes at him, Dante studied his features, looking for any telltale signs that he was lying.

He saw none.

“My buddy up front there has another one of these, so even if you managed to get to me, he’d shoot you before you could get us both. Hell, he may shoot you anyway, out of sheer fright. So, I wouldn’t make any sudden moves if I were you. We’ll be rid of each other soon enough.”

The SUV stopped just inside the hanger, and Dante weighed his chances of overpowering the two of them in spite of the driver's warning, before either had the chance to fire at him. He wouldn’t even hesitate if it weren’t for the fact that he could still feel the effects of the silver. It would slow him down. Not much, but enough to make him not want to risk it.

The older human stepped down from the hitch as the nervous one came around to back him up. They stepped back, giving him plenty of room to get out, guns raised at the ready.

Dante crept forward on his hands and feet, and lowered himself slowly out of the vehicle, combat boots landing with a loud thud on the concrete.

Indicating the plane with the barrel of his gun, the driver indicated for him to lead the way.

He stayed where he was just long enough to make them nervous, wiping his hands on his jeans, and then he smirked and headed towards the plane as they followed behind him.

The pilot waited by the bottom of the steps as they approached, and he was also packing.

Dante ignored the three gun barrels aimed at him and looked up, intrigued. This was no ordinary plane. This was a V-22 Osprey, a military aircraft that could fly long distances like a jet, yet could take off, hover, and land like a helicopter. How the hell had three homeless looking humans gotten a hold of one of these?

“Get in, asshole.”

Cold metal jabbed him in the back until he started up the stairs.

Once inside, Dante halted, awaiting further instructions. The interior was lined with troop seats.

Another jab in the back with the barrel of a gun. “Back of the plane, find a seat.”

Though it irked him to play along, Dante did as he was told. They may or may not be bluffing about the guns, but he wasn’t going to take the chance. He had no desire to die today.

He found a seat and sat down, while the humans strapped themselves in towards the front.

Guns trained on him, they taxied out of the hanger and took flight.