Cursed: Brides of the Kindred 13 (2 page)

"Yes!" the male sobbed. "I…I sw-swear! I won't bother no one ever again!"

"That's good." Stav poked him in the thigh again. "Because if you do I'll have to come back and finish the job."

But this threat appeared to be too much. The drunk male sobbed again and his bladder let go in a rush, filling the air with the sharp reek of ammonia.

With a curse, Stav jumped back, barely keeping the black flight leathers he wore from getting covered in the other male’s urine.

“Sorry, I’m sorry!” the male blubbered. Turning, he ran away, stumbling across the stony field and nearly falling headfirst several times in his haste to get as far from Stavros as he could.

Well, that’s him taken care of.
With a sigh, Stav turned to make sure the girl was all right. She was still lying on the ground, breathing hard.

“Are you all right, my lady?” Stavros asked courteously. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. Can I help you up?”

He reached out a hand for her but she scrambled backwards, her eyes filled with fear.

“Look, I’m not going to hurt you.” Stav raised his hands in a gesture of peace and realized he was still holding his knife. Quickly, he sheathed it and reached for her again. “If you’ll just let me help you up…”

“Get away from me!” The girl stumbled to her feet on her own, staring at Stavros. “Get away!”

“It’s all right,” he tried to reassure her, stepping back. “No one’s going to hurt you. You can go.”

“You…you’re a
Kindred!”
she yelled, pointing a finger at him. “You’re not supposed to be here anymore! Leave me alone!”

“I’m not trying to hurt you.” Stavros fought to keep his voice level and calm. Couldn’t she see that he’d just saved her?

“I know what you guys do—you abduct women and take them up to your ship,” the girl accused him. “Well, we don’t have to put up with that anymore! The President came on TV and said the draft is
over
. So you stay away from me!”

“I’m not trying to claim you!” This time Stav couldn’t keep the irritation out of his voice. “I don’t have any interest in claiming you or any other female. Look, never mind—I will just go.” He started to back away from her but suddenly something hard and cold was jammed in his back.

“I don’t think so, Kindred,” a soft, feminine voice purred in his ear. “You’re coming with me. You’re under arrest by orders of the Earth Protection Bureau.”

Chapter Two

He was a big son-of-a-bitch, but then all the Kindred were. Charlie wasn’t intimidated by his size in the least. The bigger they were and all that. She kept her gun jammed in his ribs as she reached for her reinforced cuffs—the ones made of titanium alloy and strong enough to hold an angry elephant—or an angry Kindred. And this one certainly didn’t seem to be happy.

“You’re making a mistake,” he growled in a deeper-than-human voice that raised the hackles on the back of her neck.

“I don’t think so. Hands behind your back—
now,”
Charlie barked. For a moment she thought the big warrior would balk but with a muffled curse, he finally complied with her command.

Despite the fact that the cuffs were specially made for Kindred, it was still a tight squeeze. He had extremely muscular arms and the cuffs were made to fit around the wrists and forearms both, forming a double barrier against escape. The wrist parts went on fine but his forearms were going to bear some marks—not that Charlie cared.

“I was
not
attacking that female,” he said, clearly thinking she had the wrong idea. “Another male was. I drove him off and tried to help her up.”

“I know it. I saw what happened,” Charlie snapped. She had actually been following him for most of the night and had observed the entire scene around the back of Bad Decisions.

“Then why are you restraining me?” He sounded thoroughly exasperated.

“
Because
I saw what happened,” Charlie repeated, still keeping the gun on him. “If you’d actually been attacking that girl, I’d be calling a unit to scrape your brains off the pavement instead of cuffing you. I don’t tolerate rapists.” That had been true of her time on the Asheville PD and it was just as true now that she was in the EPB.

“If you don’t tolerate rapists you ought to be hunting down the male who attacked her.” He nodded at the semi-hysterical girl who was still trying to get herself together.

“That’s not my priority—you are.
Kindred.”

“The male might come back at any moment,” he said, turning his head to try and look at her.

“After the way you ran him off? I don’t think so—eyes front!” Charlie jammed the gun against the side of his neck though she had to reach up to do it.

“The female is very upset and in need of comfort,” he protested.

“I’ll call for back-up and have them send someone to calm her down and chase after him,” Charlie snapped. Then she felt immediately irritated for explaining herself to the big warrior. “Come on now—move!” She thumped his wide back with her gun, nudging him forward. God, he was built like a tank! His shoulders were fully twice as broad as hers and he had to be six foot seven or eight if he was an inch.

She couldn’t be sure but in the glow of the arc sodium lamps overhead, his hair, which he wore in a club at the back of his neck, looked to be dark auburn.
Hmm, never seen a red headed Kindred before.
She wondered if he was a special breed. He had tattoos too—thick black curving lines that started at the nape of his neck and crawled down into the collar of his shirt. When Charlie stared at them, trying to make them out, the pattern seemed to shift like snakes.

“Where are you taking me?” he growled. He was moving in the right direction but not fast enough to suit her.

“To my car for starters. That’s all you need to know for now.” She thumped him again. "Hurry up."

He was silent but his shoulders were tight. She could tell by the tension in his big body he was thinking of running.

“Don’t do it.” Charlie poked him in the ribs again with the muzzle of her Glock. “My daddy taught me to hunt when I was twelve. Used to take me out to spend the night in the deer blind, waiting for some buck to wander by. And let me tell you, buddy, you’re a hell of a lot bigger target than a lot of the game I brought down.”

Some of the tension leaked out of the big form and the Kindred continued plodding towards her car.

“Besides,” Charlie continued. “You’d never get those cuffs off by yourself. They’re pretty tight, aren’t they? No way to drive a car or a space ship with those on. And after a while, blood loss and nerve damage set in. Better stay with the person who has the key.” She patted her pocket with her free hand, making her keys jingle. “Right?”

“You make a compelling argument,” he rumbled. “But I still do not see why you have to apprehend me. Despite the fact that our people are at war, I am not your enemy.”

“Oh no? Then what were you doing skulking around at night like a skunk in the garden?” Charlie demanded. “Just out playing vigilante, making sure nobody got raped or stabbed behind the bar for the hell of it?”

“I did not set out to interfere,” he protested. “But I couldn’t stand by while the female was attacked. I was actually trying to get—”

“Trying to get where?” Charlie poked him again. “Go on—you can say it.
You were trying to get to the HKR building and contact the Mother Ship, weren’t you?”

“They have an urgent message for me,” he growled reluctantly. “If I could just speak to my superior—”

“He’d what—give you instructions on where to plant a bomb or how to sabotage the local military base?”

“Of course not.” He was sounding exasperated again. “Give my people some credit. We are not terrorists—we are honorable males. No Kindred would do such a thing.”

“I don’t know what you’d do and I’m not about to give you a chance to find out.”

They had reached the car at last and Charlie was grateful. She’d had about enough conversation with the big warrior. It was time to bring him in to the EPB headquarters—which was actually just a makeshift area inside the local precinct—for processing.

She had to stand on tiptoes to get her fingers on the top of his head and fold him down into the back seat of her unmarked sedan. Folding was the right word, too—the big bastard was accordioned in like a piece of origami by the time she finally got him into the back but finally the deed was done and she was able to shut the door.

Then, leaning against the side of the closed driver’s side door, she got out her cell and called her immediate superior, Agent Purvis. He answered on the tenth ring.

“Damn it, Sayers, do you know what time it is?” he muttered sleepily into the phone.

“One fifteen AM exactly,” Charlie answered crisply. “I wouldn’t bother you at this hour without a good reason, Sir. My suspicion that a Kindred was in hiding somewhere in the vicinity of Old Pevito Road was correct. I have caught and apprehended the suspect and he is currently in custody in the back of my car.”

“What?” There was a flurry of sounds on the other side and Charlie pictured Agent Purvis sitting up suddenly in bed and knocking his balding head against the headboard. “You
what?”
he demanded.

Charlie repeated herself.

“By yourself?” Purvis demanded. “You went after a Kindred
by yourself?
Where’s Jenkins? He’d better be with you, Sayers!
”

Charlie cleared her throat. “Jenkins went home at the end of our shift. I wasn’t intending to apprehend the suspect on my own but when I saw him, I followed him. He wound up engaged in a fight outside of the bar Bad Decisions, off of Curlew and I had no choice but to take him down.”

“He was in a fight? Great, just
great!”
Purvis snapped. “It’ll be all over the news by morning! Hell, it’ll be all over the news in an
hour
if the wrong person gets hold of it. And they’re going to twist it too—make it look like we were too late to stop him attacking ordinary citizens.”

“How it looks in the news wasn’t my prime consideration when I arrested him, Sir,” Charlie said stolidly. Purvis with his constant attention to the media and concern about his personal image bugged the hell out of her. Sometimes it seemed he was more interested in preening for the cameras than doing his job. “I was more interested in making sure no one was hurt,” she continued. “Should I bring the Kindred suspect in to headquarters for processing?”

“Into headquarters—you mean at the PD? No—no, of course not!,” Purvis sputtered. “Why the hell would you do that? The media vultures would be on us even quicker.”

“Well what am I supposed to do with him?” Charlie demanded, thoroughly pissed off. “Just let him go? We’re the EPB for God’s sake—taking down any remaining Kindred is our job. Or so you told me when you recruited me!”

“Take him to a safe house,” Purvis said quickly. “You do have safe houses here in Ashville, right?” Purvis was from the DC area and had come to town to start the Asheville branch of the EPB so he wasn’t familiar with the area. Still, his question struck Charlie as more than a little asinine.

“No Sir, we do
not
have a safe house set up and just waiting for anyone who needs to use it,” she said acidly. “It’s the Asheville PD, not the Witness Protection Agency.”

“Well you
can’t
take him to the precinct.” Purvis was sounding belligerent now.

“I can’t leave him cuffed in the back of my car all night either,” Charlie countered. “He’s got to go
somewhere
secure.”

“Somewhere secure…somewhere secure…” There was a clicking sound at the other end of the phone and this time Charlie pictured Purvis tapping a plastic Bic pen cap against his yellowing top teeth. It was an annoying and slightly disgusting habit he had while thinking—if what went on in his balding head could be called thinking, that was.

Not for the first time she wondered why she’d allowed herself to be recruited away from the PD for this job. She had just made detective—one of the youngest in the Asheville PD history—and she’d had her own office and everything.

But Purvis hadn’t seemed like nearly such an idiot when he came rolling into town with his presidential mandate and his plans to protect their country and world from the evils of the Kindred. He’d told Charlie that they needed people like her—people who had grown up here and already knew the lay of the land. After all, it’s the hound that knows the hills it’s hunting that catches the most game.

Everything he’d said had seemed to make sense at the time. Charlie had allowed her patriotism to overcome her common sense and had quit the PD to become Charlotte Sayers EPB, Agent First Class. Of course, it wasn’t just patriotism that lured her in—it was the way she felt about the Kindred and their draft. No female ought to be forced into a sexual relationship against her will. After what had happened to Missy— But Charlie shut down that line of thought fast. It wouldn’t do to get emotional right now.