Found, a Vampire Romance

Found

A Vampire Romance

Story 2 in the Lost Series

Chapter 1

Dark surrounded him.

Hunger clawed at him.

Already on his knees, Dorian Renault doubled over and dug his fingers into the dirt. He fell forward onto all fours. The monster inside him was growing, taking over his mind. It had whispered to him, had told him to drain the blonde his brother had protected. His body shook.

And he would have if Cameron hadn't stopped him. But his brother, older, wiser...
better
than Dorian could ever be, had stopped him.

"Dorian!" Cameron called.

Dorian tried to stand, but his knees bent and his back arched. The pain was too great and the hunger too all-encompassing.

"Dorian." Again, softer. Cameron was moving the wrong direction, farther away.

Dorian lifted his hand and tried to speak. He needed to call Cameron back. He needed his big brother to find him... to
kill
him.

But, despite his efforts, only a guttural noise made its way past his lips.

His brother, with his vampire-killing stake, had wandered too far away.

Dorian was lost. The monster inside him had won.

He fell back onto the dirt.

A cry sounded, and something scrabbled in the dark. Not Cameron, but—Dorian inhaled— a human. A
wounded
human.

His mind flashed to the car, the mangled mass of metal that had been a car. He hadn’t seen the wreck, but he had heard it. At first he had still had some control. He had known the scent of blood that had to surround such a scene would be too much for him, and he had resisted approaching it, but then he had weakened and gone closer.

There had been one live girl there, with Cameron. His brother had protected her, taken her to the road where day was appearing, where Dorian couldn’t follow. But he must have left another.

Why would Cameron have left one behind? He'd known that Dorian was here. Known of the hunger that consumed him.

Dorian's nostrils flared.
Blood
. The scent was strong. Something inside his brain clicked. He needed blood. He'd told Cameron as much, and his brother must have agreed.

Even as the thought formed, Dorian knew it wasn't true. He knew his brother wouldn't sacrifice a human, not even to save his only brother.

But the monster... The monster didn't care.

o0o

Rocks cut into Nancy Bonnelly's face. She twisted her neck to avoid them, but pain shot through her back.

She gasped and gritted her teeth. Pain was good. It told her she was alive. Something she'd heard on some TV show...
stupid
. She closed her eyes and willed the pain to leave. It didn't. She reached around and groped at her back. Something hard and sharp protruded from her body.

She jerked her hand away. Blood, warm and sticky, coated her fingers. She gagged and gasped for air.

She was hurt, badly, but Rachel knew that. Her friend had gone for help, and then there had been someone else....

Nancy’s head ached. She couldn’t remember, or she was remembering wrong. Someone had spoken to her, told her to come with him. He’d led her away from the wreck, helped her walk, but the pain had been too much. She’d stumbled and fallen. And he had let her.

Why would the man— it was a man, or male, at least— have left her lying in the dirt?

Maybe he had gone for help. Which meant someone would come soon. They had to.

She tried to push herself up, but her arms wouldn’t hold her weight. She was weak, too weak to lift her body even an inch.

As her fingers dug into the earth, all she could do was lie still, inhale the scent of cold, damp dirt, and listen to the quiet of the canyon around her.

There was no wind. No sound of leaves or grass moving. No normal night sounds either. No frogs or crickets. Nancy was from a small town. She was used to the woods and nature. That was one of the reasons she’d known she’d be able to handle the trip into the canyon.

The other girls in her sorority might freak, but Nancy wouldn’t. And she hadn’t. Not until...

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think back to the wreck, the shrieking metal and screaming girls. The sound of whatever they had hit slamming into her hood and rolling up over the top of her car.

She’d felt sick with dread then, but what followed... the crash, the sight of two of her friends bleeding, dead...

Her fault. All of it her fault.

She squeezed her eyes closed tighter. Tears leaked through the seam between her lids.

To her right, something moved. She tensed and opened her eyes. Her first instinct was to call for help, but she forced herself to wait. She was lying helpless in a canyon that was populated with badgers, coyotes— even bears had been seen near here.

And she was in no condition to run or fight.

Another noise and, with it, her heart sank. A sniffle, followed by a growl.

Not human. Animal. What kind? Predator or scavenger? Could she scare it off with just her voice, or would she draw the creature closer?

Before she could decide, the animal moved into view. A wolf. Huge. Saint Bernard huge.

Nancy swallowed.

Impossible. Wolves didn’t get that big. Did they?

Its nose low, the animal crept closer.

Wolves didn’t attack humans. If she lay very still, it would go away.
But wolves ate carrion
. If she lay too still, would the creature think she was dead?

As the thought formed in her head, her choice was taken away. The wolf lunged forward, grabbed her by her tennis-shoe-covered foot, and started dragging her across the hard ground.

She screamed and kicked, landing a blow directly between the creature’s eyes. But her strength was minimal, and the animal didn’t even pause.

The wolf continued its trek backwards, pulling Nancy God-knew-where in rough, bone-jarring jerks.

She scraped her nails over the dirt, fighting for some hold, something to slow her journey to wherever the animal planned to take her. A plant passed under her hand. She clung to its leaves. For a second the roots held.

She gulped in air, not sure how holding her place would help her, but terrified of being dragged like a dead deer deeper into the canyon. Then the roots burst free from the earth, and her body slid backward again, this time feet instead of inches. 

She screamed. 

o0o

A scream sliced through the dark.

Dorian tilted his head toward the sound. The monster inside him twitched. Dorian fought the creature, but only for a second. The scent of blood, and now the scream laced with terror, were too much. He couldn’t resist.

He sprang from his crouch and bounded toward the noise.

As he moved closer, he slowed and inhaled again. Human, but something else too. Wolf.

Something tickled at his brain. Some inkling that this second scent wasn’t right. But logic was quickly lost, leaving behind nothing but desire for his prey.
His
.

No beast would take it from him.

He charged forward.

A woman lay on the ground face down. Her arms were outstretched, and she grabbed at the snow-speckled dirt. Her body jerked, moving backward across the ground. Dorian frowned, momentarily confused. Then he saw the wolf, a huge one. Its teeth sunk into the woman’s leg, the animal hopped backward, pulling the woman six inches or more with each of its jolting yanks.

Trespasser
.

Dorian had known some other predator was roaming the canyon. It was why he’d stayed here as long as he had. Bodies, his father’s hapless victims, had been disappearing from the cave where Dorian had been charged with storing them.

He’d thought another vampire was at work, perhaps gathering evidence to use against his father, but now he realized he’d been wrong. His monster paused, retreating as his mind rolled this discovery around.

The wolf jerked backward again, pulling the female another two feet. As her body was dragged over the earth, she looked up. Her eyes wide with terror, she stared at Dorian.

He tilted his head.

Not dead
. Not prey. A tiny piece of him still recognized that. He paused again, still not sure, still not himself.

Then, with a snarl, he leapt forward, onto the wolf.

The creature released its hold on the female and twisted its head to the side. Its teeth flashed as it tried to latch onto its attacker. His arm wrapped around the animal’s neck, Dorian flipped the wolf onto its side.

The animal bellowed in outrage.

Dorian pulled back his lips and hissed. The wolf bucked beneath him and twisted its body. Its teeth snapped inches from his face. Grappling for a tighter hold, he drove his face forward and into the creature’s fur.

But the animal’s fur was too thick, and the creature itself moved too strongly. His fangs couldn’t connect, not with flesh.

He cursed and flipped them both over again, but the wolf turned in his arms. Its feet hit the ground, and it slithered out of his hold. Three feet away, the animal raised its lip and snapped its jaws.

Dorian returned the gesture. Rising to a crouch, the vampire prepared to leap again.

Howls sounded from somewhere nearby. Dorian froze.

Its gaze still on Dorian, the wolf’s ruff rose. It snapped out a bark.

Warning? Promise?
Dorian couldn’t tell.

Then, with no further communication, the creature spun and raced toward the other wolves’ calls.

Dorian stood, ready to give chase.

“Is it...” The female lifted her head and then, as if the effort to speak was too much, lowered her face back down onto the ground.

Dorian hesitated. Instincts— human, vampire and monster— warred for control.

He inhaled.
Blood
. He hadn’t fed in a week. His fangs hung heavy in his mouth. He licked his lips.

“Is it gone?” The female’s voice was soft and weak. A human might not have heard her words, but Dorian, with his vampire senses, did.

Soft and weak. Helpless. Easy prey.

He took a step toward her.

“I—” She collapsed.

Dorian crept closer. He knelt beside her. He reached out, planning to touch her, but something stopped him. His hand hovered above her body.

She smelled of blood, but she smelled of flowers too. Jasmine. A fresh scent so out of place here in the dark, fog-filled canyon that it triggered something in Dorian’s mind. His hand shook. He closed his fingers into a fist, and he clenched them until his knuckles popped.

He wasn’t his father. He didn’t prey on the weak. He didn’t dominate just because he could. And, despite what his time in this canyon was doing to him, he wasn’t a monster.

Not really.

Slowly, he opened his fist and lowered his fingers to the woman’s back. Her hair was long and dark. It flowed over her shoulders and past her waist. He stroked its length, stroked her, unsure, at first, and almost afraid.

Her back moved up and down with her breaths, shallow, but still there. He leaned closer and listened for the beat of her heart. Soft, but steady... soothing.

He inhaled, and her scent wrapped around him again. He leaned closer yet, until his nose brushed her hair, inches from her neck. The proximity to her and the blood that covered her should have ignited the monster he’d been fighting for days, but it didn’t. Instead, the beast seemed to retreat.

Dorian closed his eyes, and, for the first time in days, he relaxed. Not completely, but enough that he felt hope. Perhaps he could survive. Perhaps he wasn’t completely lost.

His own heart beating faster than a vampire’s should, he scooped the unconscious woman into his arms and jogged deeper into the night.

Chapter 2

Nancy’s head knocked against something solid. The scent of woods and night wrapped around her. Her body bumped up and down, pain shooting through her with each unwelcome jostle.

She moaned.

“Almost there.” The voice was low and masculine. It rolled over her, comforting despite a rough quality, as if unused for some time.

She realized then she was being held, carried away from where she had lain. “Wolf,” she muttered, a spike of fear shooting through her. The animal had been huge. No man, unarmed at least, could fight off such a creature.

“Gone.” The man holding her pulled her closer so her cheek pressed against his chest. He wore only a cotton shirt, no jacket despite the chill.

Perhaps he’d seen her and run from his car to get her. And now he was taking her back.

She closed her eyes and let her mind go blank.

o0o

Dorian stared down at the woman in his arms. He’d held many women before, but he’d never cradled one like this, never carried one knowing she trusted him, needed him.

The feeling was heady. She needed him. Without him, the wolves would have dragged her off, and what? Would they have waited for her to die naturally, or would they have sped the process?

Dorian knew little of the creatures, but the thought of one tearing out the female’s throat and dining on her flesh made him clutch her more tightly against his chest.